EDUCATION OF THE LAITY 



IN THE 



EARLY MIDDLE AGES 



BY 



Patrick Joseph McCormick, S. T. L. 



A DISSERTATION 
Submitted to the Faculty of Philosophy 

OF THE 

Catholic University of America 

IN Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for 

the Degree, Doctor of Philosophy 

- w^^ « 



^f^^iMU 



WASHINGTON, D. C. 
June, 1912 



EDUCATION OF THE LAITY 

IN THE 

EARLY MIDDLE AGES 



BY 

Patrick Joseph McCormick, S. T. L. 



A DISSERTATION 

Submitted to the Faculty of Philosophy 

OF THE 

Cathouc University of America 
IN Partial Fulrlment of the Requirements for 

the Degree, Doctor of Philosophy 

^ s "^ t. 

•^ !^ rr-, ^ 






WASHINGTON, D. C. 
June, 1912 






The Catholic Education Press 

WASHINGTON, D. C. 



«A... :i ,. 



'^ 



c 



CONTENTS. 



Preface 5 

cl chapter 

< I. The Fifth and Sixth Centuries 9 

^ II. The Seventh and Eighth Centuries 20 

III. Revival under Charlemagne AND Alcuin 29 

IV. The School for Externs 41 

V. The Tenth and Eleventh Centuries 51 

Bibliography 61 



PREFACE. 

In this dissertation the aim has been to show the nature 
and extent of the provision made in the early Middle 
Ages for the education of the laity. The period covered 
is from the fall of the Roman Empire to the rise of the 
universities, or more precisely, from the fifth to the 
eleventh century, inclusively. The attempt has been made 
to describe the state of education in each succeeding cen- 
tury, to indicate the distribution of schools over different 
areas, and to show the possibilities of education open to 
those who were not preparing for the clerical or the relig- 
ious life. In consequence, the great movements which 
affected the state of culture or learning and revived the 
educational spirit of the time have come first under con- 
sideration, the effect of such movements on general edu- 
cation and particularly on the elementary instruction of 
the young, being especially noted. The efforts in behalf 
of educational reform made by those in authority in State 
and Church, e. g., Charlemagne and Alcuin, Louis the 
Pious and St. Benedict of Aniane, are shown both by an 
examination of the capitularies, canons and decrees of 
councils and synods of their time, and wherever possible, 
by the actual results which were obtained in the quicken- 
ing of educational thought and zeal on the part of the 
leaders, and in the establishment of schools. 

It is believed that undue importance is not given to the 
enactments of civil or ecclesiastical law dealing with edu- 
cational matters. Regarded as evidences of law and pre- 
cept and not merely as points of recommendation, they 
are held to be remarkable for their number and variety ; 
they are not thought to be seriously defective because 
wanting in that detail which so many consider as neces- 
sary for the inauguration of any new measures of admin- 
istration or reform. When one realizes how little is said 



6 PREFACE 

of education or the means of promoting the same in the 
constitutions of modern States; how scanty is the pro- 
vision made in the Constitution of the United States, and 
in the early constitutions of the several States of the 
Union, for the elementary schools, one appreciates more 
justly these early endeavors in behalf of education. **The 
Constitution of the United States contains no reference 
to the duty of providing the means for education. That 
great document is silent upon the subject of first public 
concern, although the fathers of the Constitution were 
neither indifferent nor uninformed about it." (Draper, 
A. S. ''Functions of the State Touching Education," in 
the Educational Review, XV; 107.) "The earlier state 
constitutions only infrequently contain mention of educa- 
tion," but this, it is said, "was not because of any lack of 
recognition of the position of the State government in re- 
spect to schools and educational facilities. Rather was it 
tacitly assumed that State legislatures in carrying out 
their general powers of protecting the commonwealths 
and promoting the welfare of individuals would find that 
a provision of education offered a serviceable means to 
these ends." (Dutton and Snedden, Administration of 
Public Education in the United States, 56. New York, 
1910.) 

It is taken as matter of course that the modern State 
or community went about the work of education by build- 
ing and maintaining schools long before it began to legis- 
late about them, enforce attendance, etc., but the same is 
not thought possible for the Middle Ages, and what rul- 
ings we have on education for that period are not re- 
garded as indicative either of the intentions of the legis- 
lators, or of the actual state of education. It would be 
more natural and logical to feel that certain things were 
assumed then, as they are now by legislators, and that 
the officials of the civil and ecclesiastical orders really in- 
tended to execute the laws they made. What was done 
by the bishops in regard to the schools of their jurisdic- 



PKEFACE / 

tion was more than once a real anticipation of a practice 
that later became a matter of law. Some of their educa- 
tional measures, like the founding of scholarships, were 
first carried into effect and afterward merely confirmed 
by law. The capitularies, canons, decrees, and the vari- 
ous forms of legislation and direction are, therefore, en- 
titled to serious study, and ought to be regarded as 
weighty evidence of the educational interests and activi- 
ties of their time. 

The types of schools flourishing in each succeeding cen- 
tury are reviewed in order to obtain an idea of their ex- 
tent and the provision made in them for the education 
of the laity. What facilities were offered in the episcopal, 
parish, and palace schools, and in the monasteries before 
the formal establishment of the schools for externs, what 
was the effect of this establishment, and its significance 
as indicating the presence of large numbers of pupils in 
the monastic schools and the necessity of caring for them, 
are questions which demand even greater attention than 
those referring to the lay teachers and professions them- 
selves. Care has been taken to treat only of those points 
in connection with individual schools which were of 
rather general application, or typical of certain countries 
or periods. This was called for by the order followed in 
the chapters which required that the European world of 
the time be kept in view, however much the accomplish- 
ments of a great personal factor like Charlemagne or 
Alfred the Great might be emphasized. 

The precise nature of the education given the laity, al- 
though an important and interesting question in itself, 
has not been treated here even for the period which fol- 
lowed the formal establishment of the school for externs, 
when young laymen and clerics were separated from the 
monks. Before that legal provision was made the ele- 
mentary education whether in the monastery, the episco- 
pal, or the parish school, was apparently the same for all 
students. It became differentiated when instruction in the 



b PREFACE 

fine arts, in law, and in medicine was introduced. It was 
not thought necessary to include it here when the chief 
purpose was to show that the educational advantages of 
the time were not denied to laymen. Another interesting 
and pertinent question, the education of girls not prepar- 
ing for the cloistral life, is not included in the disserta- 
tion as here published, although occasional references are 
made to it. 

A bibliography of the works consulted and referred to 
in the text is appended, with the editions noted to which 
the author had access. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE FIFTH AND SIXTH CENTURIES. 

The last stronghold of paganism in the Roman Empire 
was the school. Long after the conflict of the pagan State 
with the Christian Church had subsided the antagonism 
of the public school continued. At times it was an open 
fight, again an opposing influence to the struggling 
Church. The emperors who had first liberated the 
Church, and emancipated her subjects, did not remove this 
obstacle to her progress. Those who were of Christian 
convictions would not interfere with a widespread and 
effective instrument for the maintenance of the civil 
power. Their training and the traditions of their office 
made them conservative, loath to interfere with the exist- 
ing order,^ and they contented themselves with ruling 
that nothing objectionable to Christians, such as religious 
ceremonies and rites, be continued in the schools. Pagan 
instructors were still allowed to teach and very few Chris- 
tians were decorated with the official titles of rhetoricians 
and grammarians.- Even in the new university of 
Constantinople, founded by Constantine the Great, pagan 
as well as Christian teachers were officially employed. 

The last futile attempt to rehabilitate pagan culture 
was made through the schools. The Christians who were 
the most serious obstacle to the scheme were expressly 
forbidden to hold positions as instructors and even to 
apply themselves as students.^ The Galileans could not 
conscientiously worship at the altar of Minerva; they 



1 Marion, Histoire de I'EgHse. I, 488. Paris, 1906. 

-Lalanne, Influence des Peres de I'Eglise sur I'education publique 58. 
Paris, 1850. 

^Allard, Julien L'Apostat, II, 360. Paris, 1903. (Discussion as to- 
whether Christians as students were forbidden.) 



10 EDUCATION OF THE LAITY IN THE MIDDLE AGES 

could return to their churches and interpret Matthew and 
Luke, Julian had said, and despite the protests of Chris- 
tian bishops, some of whom, like Gregory Nazianzen, had 
been his fellow students at the University of Athens, the 
ruling prevailed until the champion of the Hellenic gods 
was himself vanquished. 

It was only when the system of State schools had been 
hopelessly shattered that the Christian Church found her- 
self free to follow her plans of school organization and 
development. When the last stronghold of paganism fell 
in the East, the new stronghold of the Christian educa- 
tional forces sprang up in the West. The School of 
Athens was closed by imperial decree in 529, and that 
same year Monte Cassino opened.* In that same eventful 
year also the bishops of Gaul met in council at Vaison, 
and passed their famous decree for the establishment of 
parish schools throughout their jurisdiction.^ 

The primitive Church, prompted by her mission to 
teach all men, very early enlisted the school among her 
working forces. Her immediate needs, and the circum- 
stances of time and place, tended to foster the types of 
schools which represented her first educational efforts. 
To instruct the converts from paganism the catechetical 
and catechumenal schools were provided; to combat the 
heretics and the infidels she encouraged the philosophical 
schools like those of Origen and Justin Martyr; to pre- 
pare servants for the sanctuary the episcopal or cathedral 
schools came into existence. Christian children needed to 
be instructed in virtue as well as in wisdom, and when 
free to do so the Church had sought that provision be 
made for them. 

St. Chrysostom furnishes evidence of the decline of 
primitive fervor in the Christian family of the fourth cen- 
tury by his contention that the domestic circle was no 
longer capable of supplying the proper religious and 



*Sandys, History of Classical Scholarship. Cambridge, 1906. 
sMansi, Collectio Amplissima Conciliorum, vol. 8. Parisiis, 1901. 



THE FIFTH AND SIXTH CENTURIES 11 

moral training for the children. Pagan society and en- 
vironment had affected the Christian home, and the care 
and diligence of former days in instructing the children 
in virtue had disappeared to an alarming extent. Under 
these circumstances attendance at the pagan or Jewish 
schools was unquestionably fraught with the greatest 
danger for Christian faith and morals, and although he 
and others of the Fathers had studied under pagan mas- 
ters, he directed parents to send their children to those 
who would diligently serve their spiritual as well as their 
intellectual wants.^ 

The anchorites and cenobites of the East had responded 
to this need of the time and undertaken to educate Chris- 
tian children. Those whom they received as pupils into 
their communities were not necessarily candidates for the 
religious life. Some of them were orphans who were 
given the saving protection of Christian surroundings; 
others were received from their parents in the presence 
of witnesses that they might be instructed in Christian 
virtue. No doubt the hope was entertained both by the 
parents and the monks that the child would eventually 
offer himself for service in the monastery, but no irrev- 
ocable pledge was made at that time either by the child 
or by the parents. The matter of entering the order or of 
taking vows was deferred until the subject attained the 
proper age to decide for himself. The immediate aim in 
receiving the children was to educate them, to train them 
to lives of Christian virtue. Those who proved their 
fitness, and manifested the desire, could later elect to 
return to the world, to enter the monastery or the her- 
mit's cell.'^ 

The monks of the West were also engaged in this phase 
of education long before the establishment of Monte Cas- 
«ino or the promulgation, in 529, of the great constitution 



«Pat. Gr. Migne XLVII, 349. Adversus oppugnatores vitae monasticae. 
Ad patrem fidelem. Lalanne, 167. 

^Rule of Basil, Pat. Gr. XXIX; Rule of Pachomius and Commentary. 
Pat. Ut. XXIII, 70. 



12 EDUCATION OF THE LAITY IN THE MIDDLE AGES 

of monasticism, the Benedictine Eule. The most illus- 
trious examples of this are furnished by the monastic 
institutions of Gaul, both those of men and of women. In 
that territory where for two centuries, the third and the 
fourth, the pagan schools had reached their highest de- 
velopment and produced some of their ripest scholars, 
the Christian schools of the fifth and sixth centuries grew 
in power and increased in number in a degree propor- 
tionate to the decline of their antagonists. The control 
of education then passed into the hands of the clergy, 
and the work consequently of preparing youths for life 
in the cloister or in the world became an established in- 
stitution in the early Church of Gaul. 

At various times students were also received into the 
monasteries who prepared for the secular clergy, but 
these in the period under consideration were exceptional, 
for the episcopal or cathedral schools amply provided for 
them. The latter type of school flourished at this time 
in almost every episcopal city of the Christian world and 
was especially efficient in the West.^ While the principal 
aim of the bishops in establishing them was to prepare 
levites for the sanctuary, other students were not denied 
admission. Judging from the curriculum followed in the 
early episcopal schools of Gaul, and from the number of 
lay teachers engaged (sometimes these were converted 
rhetoricians), a considerable portion of the students 
would seem to have had no intention of entering the 
clerical state. Converts were instructed there and, in 
Merovingian days, when the bishops became proprietary 
lords with the duty of providing education for all, it was 
but natural that they should first equip their own school 
for general educational purposes. The famous schools 
of Aries, Paris, Poitiers, Bourges, Clermont, Vienne, 
Chalons-sur-Saone and Gap were well attended when the 
State schools fell into decline.^ 



^Cubberley, Syllabus of Lectures, I. 59. New York, 1902. (In 614 there 
were 112 bishoprics in Frankland alone.) 

^Denk, Geschichte des Gallo-Frankischen Unterrichts, 191. Mainz, 1892. 



THE FIFTH AND SIXTH CENTURIES 13 

The parish also supplied an important educational in- 
stitution. The decree of the Council of Vaison, 529, that 
pastors should establish schools and undertake the in- 
struction of the young, is significant not only for the ter- 
ritory immediately concerned but for the reference it 
makes to the custom already prevailing in Italy and there 
producing good results. It had been fruitful in fostering 
vocations to the priestly state, and that undoubtedly was 
one of the chief aims of the bishops of Gaul in urging its 
imitation. There is a warning in the canon, however, that 
those who desire to take up the married state be given all 
freedom to do so. The canon follows : 

*'Hoc enim placuit ut omnes presbyteri qui sunt in pa- 
rochiis constituti secundum consuetudinem, quam per to- 
tam Italiam satis salubriter teneri cognovimus, juniores 
lectores, quantoscumque sine uxore habuerint, secum in 
domo, ubi ipsi habitare videntur, recipiant: et eos quo- 
modo boni patres spiritaliter nutrientes, psalmos parare, 
divinis lectionibus insistere, et in lege Domini erudire 
contehdant: ut et sibi dignos successores provideant, et 
a Domino praemia aeterna recipiant. Cum vero ad aeta- 
tem perfectam pervenerint, si aliquis eorum pro carnis 
fragilitate uxorem habere voluerit, potestas ei ducendi 
conjugium non negetur.'"" 

While this text is of the greatest historical importance 
for recording the official sanction of the presbyteral or 
parish school, the impression must not be taken that no 
other evidences remain of earlier institutions of this kind. 
In the second century a parish school was maintained at 
Edessa, where the priest Protogenes taught little children 
reading, writing, singing, and the elements of Christian 
Doctrine. ^^ Nor does the text implj^ that no parish 
schools existed in that part of the Church, for in the pre- 
ceding century one is found at Rennes (480) which does 



loMansi, Coll. Amp. Concil. vol. 8. 

i^Stockl. Geschichte der Padagogik, 78. Mainz, 1876. 



14 EDUCATION OF THE LAITY IN THE MIDDLE AGES 

not seem to have been monastical in organization, and 
whose curriculum embracing reading, writing, arithmetic 
and religion, indicates its elementary character/^ 

With the spread of the monks the cloister eventually 
supplied the chief means of education for the laity. The 
children of the nobility and of the poor attended these 
schools for purely educational purposes, and many of 
them at the completion of their courses returned to their 
homes. They came at times in great numbers to the mon- 
asteries of men and women, and their formation com- 
sumed nearly the entire time of the religious. Muteau 
says that at Aries, where two hundred nuns were occu- 
pied in copying MSS., open school was kept for the 
neighborhood {ecoles ouvertes). At Laon also the 
learned abbess, St. Austrude, ^^est represents comme 
ay ant consacre sa vie a la culture des lettres, ' exercens se 
etiam in magisterio doctrinae/ ''^^ Yet these nuns were 
discouraged in this practice by St. Caesarius of Aries 
who gave them their rule. They followed in their com- 
munity life one of the earliest forms of the formal 
cloister,^* and the bishop deemed it wise to exclude from 
their houses the children of the nobility or of the poor who 
came merely for their education. The prohibition would 
seem to indicate that the children could be provided for 
elsewhere. ''Et si fieri potest, aut difficile, aut ulla unquam 
in monasterio infantula parvula, nisi ah annis sex aut 
septem, quae jam et litteras discere et obedientiae possit 
obtemperare, suscipiatur. Nobilium filiae sive ignobili- 
um, ad nutriendum aut docendum, penitus non accipi- 
antur."^^ 

Gaul was a responsive soil to the seed of monasticism. 
Since the foundations of Liguge and Marmoutier by St. 



i2Denk, 194. 

i^Muteau, Les Ecoles et Colleges en Provence, 14. Dijon, 1882. 

i*Cath. Encyclopedia, "Cloister." 

isRegula ad Virgines : Pat. Lat. LXVII, 1108. 



THE FIFTH AND SIXTH CENTURIES 15 

Martin of Tours in the fourth century, and the later or- 
ganization of monastic life by John Cassian, the cloister 
institutions had spread with remarkable rapidity. The 
monks were not only numerous, as when, for instance, two 
thousand accompanied the remains of St. Martin to the 
tomb, but deeply spiritual and enthusiastic to place within 
the reach of others the blessings which they enjoyed in 
this new form of spiritual endeavor. They received their 
spirit as well as their organization largely from Cassian 
who learned the principles of the cenobitic life from the 
celebrated Fathers of the desert. He had lived with the 
monks at Bethlehem and the hermits in Egypt, and had 
come into close contact with St. Chrysostom, by whom he 
was ordained a deacon. He embodied in his rule many 
of the principles of the Eastern ascetics and perpetuated 
their traditions in regard to education. His Institutes 
were used by St. Benedict in drawing up the constitution 
of his order, and his Collations were recommended by 
him as spiritual reading for the monks.^*' Cassian 's work 
was in short for Gaul what Benedict 's was at a later date 
for the monasteries of Europe. 

The claims for the extent of education provided by the 
religious of these early cloisters, those of men and of 
women, and for the laity as well as for the clergy, do not 
seem extravagant when the customs prevailing in the 
Orient are remembered, and the fact recalled that Cassian 
desired to propagate them in the West. He had lived in 
the Eastern and Egyptian monasteries as guest and tem- 
porary pupil of the great Fathers of the spiritual life 
then in charge ; he had witnessed the good effects of the 
custom then in vogue of allowing the laity to be present at 
these instructions, for, besides the children who attended 
for their education, many of their elders visited them for 
retreats, and although not forming part of the community 



lepat. Lat. XLIX, L- 



16 EDUCATION OF THE LAITY IN THE MIDDLE AGES 

enjoyed the advantage of ii^struction in the principles of 
the spiritual life.^^ 

The outer and inner departments of the monastery 
came to be recognized at an early period in the history 
of monasticism in Gaul. There was no legislation, it is 
true, in regard to the separation of the classes of students, 
but the prohibition of St. Caesarius shows that both 
classes of children presented themselves for instruction, 
and they were practically designated. He had allowed the 
nuns to accept the '' ohlati," those who were oifered as 
future subjects of the monastery, and prohibited the re- 
ception of those whose purpose there was merely educa- 
tional. The fact that his successor Aurelian was obliged 
to settle the age for the reception of children, making it 
ten years instead of six or seven, incidentally attests the 
eagerness of parents to place their offspring with the re- 
ligious, some even desiring to do so with their infants.^^ 

The Kule of St. Benedict appeared about 530, and its 
more than rapid circulation in the monastic world evi- 
dences at once the wide diffusion of the monasteries, the 
eagerness of the monks for a more systematic life and 
better organization, and the attention of all to education. 
It is said that in twenty-five years it had affected all 
Christian Europe. The educational significance of its 
rapi4 spread is better realized when it is recalled that St. 
Maurus, and others like St. Columbanus who were af- 
fected by it, interpreted its provisions in favor of more 
extensive literary and educational pursuits.^® Although 
the Eule does not speak of the cloistral school explicitly, 
nor of the lay and clerical students, it mentions the work 
of education and the requirements necessary in the prepa- 
ration of boys for the order. Certainly all who applied 
were not accepted as subjects and it was not long before 



i^Commentary on Rule of Cassian in Migne, Pat. Lat. up supra. 
isDenk, 196. 
"Sandys, I, 453. 



THE FIFTH AND SIXTH CENTURIES 17 

the time of probation was extended by ecclesiastical law, 
making it necessary for the young of both sexes to un- 
dergo a period of trial of at least one year before they 
could be regarded as members of the novitiate.^" 

The remarkable growth and prosperity of the monas- 
teries continued throughout the whole of the sixth cen- 
tury. Nowhere on the Continent is this better shown 
than in Gaul. In that century owing to the impetus given 
by St. Maurus, the disciple of St. Benedict, there were 
eighty foundations in the valley of the Saone and the 
Rhine, ninety-four from the Pyrenees to the Loire, fifty- 
four from the Loire to the Vosges, and ten from the 
Vosges to the Rhine.-^ The Benedictine movement then 
advanced to other countries : St. Martin of Deume carried 
the new institution to Spain, and St. Augustine to Eng- 
land. The monasteries of North Britain had long before 
thrived and grown even in the fifth century to great pro- 
portions." Italy had seen many other foundations be- 
fore that of Monte Cassino — twenty-two monasteries in 
the City of Rome accepted the Benedictine Rule almost 
as soon as it appeared — and Africa, St. Augustine attests, 
was already in possession of her monasteries as well as 
episcopal schools." 

Ireland at this time was a veritable land of schools and 
scholars. In the fifth and sixth centuries her monasteries 
were world renowned as institutes of learning, and in the 
seventh and eighth a constant stream of students came 
from the Continent to learn theology, Scripture, and clas- 
sic literature fi'om the great Irish scholars. Famous 
for their knowledge of Latin and Greek, the Irish 
sehools were preparing in this epoch for that generation 
of teachers who were shortly to invade Europe, and dis- 



20Epistles of St. Gregory the Great, I, 50 in Pat. Lat. XLIX. 
2iMarion, 11, 138. 

22Drane, Christian Schools and Scholars, I, 48. London, 1867. 
23Marion, I, 573. 



18 EDUCATION OF THE LAITY IN THE MIDDLE AGES 

tinguisli themselves as philosophers and teachers in both 
public and private schools.^* 

The foundations of Armagh by St. Patrick, of Kildare 
by St. Brigid, were emulated both as schools and as mon- 
asteries by the efforts of St. Enda of Aran, St. Finian of 
Clonard, St. Brendan of Clonfert before St. Comgall 
founded the famous school of Bangor or St. Columbanus 
led his Irish monks to Luxeuil in France, and Bobbio in 
Italy. From the latter we have the terse description of 
the daily work in every monastery: "Ergo quotidie je- 
junandum est, sicut quotidie orandum est, quotidie la- 
horandum, quotidieque est legendum." Dr. Healy writ- 
ing of the monasteries generally, and of the Irish in par- 
ticular, says : 

''Fasting and prayer, labor and study, are the daily 
tasks of the monks in every monastery. How patiently 
and unselfishly that toil was performed the history of 
Europe tells. The monks made roads, cleared the for- 
ests, and fertilized the desert. Their monasteries in Ire- 
land were the sites of our cities. To this day the land 
about the monastery is well known to be the greenest and 
best in the district ; and it was made fertile by the labors 
of the monks. They preserved for us the literary treas- 
ures of antiquity; they multiplied copies of all the best 
and newest works; they illuminated them with the most 
loving care. They taught the children of the rich and 
poor alike; they built the Church and the palace; they 
were the greatest authors, painters and architects, since 
the decline of the Roman Empire. They were the physi- 
cians of the poor when there were no dispensary doctors ; 
they served the sick in the hospitals and at their homes. 
And when the day's work was done in the fields or in the 
study, they praised God, and prayed for men who were 
unable or unwilling to pray for themselves. Ignorant and 



2*0zanam, A. F. Oeuvres, v. 4, p. 528. Paris (1872). 



THE FIFTH AND SIXTH CENTURIES 19 

prejudiced men have spoken of them as an idle and use- 
less race. They were in realitj^ the greatest toilers, and 
the greatest benefactors of humanity that the world has 
ever seen. "^® 



25Healy, Ireland's Ancient Schools and Scholars, 102. Dublin, 1893. 



CHAPTER II 

THE SEVENTH AND EIGHTH CENTURIES 

It is not our purpose to set forth here the content of 
monastic education, but rather to indicate the extent of 
the provision made in the monasteries for the training of 
the laity. Before noting the other forms of scholastic 
institutions then flourishing, it may be well, however, to 
state that the leading and dominating idea in the Chris- 
tian school of that period was to give a religious and 
sound moral training. That had been the concern of the 
Church from the beginning of her educational work. The 
parental duty was expressed by St. John to Electa and 
her family in commendation of their steadfastness in the 
Faith. "I was exceeding glad that I found of thy chil- 
dren walking in the truth, as we have received a com- 
mandment from the Father. ' '^^ When it became necessary 
to provide the means for Christian parents to train their 
children intellectually without (ganger to faith or morals, 
the course of instruction in the monasteries was regu- 
lated to meet that end. The religious and moral training 
came first — les bonnes moeurs avant les belles lettres. 
The children were prepared to retain their Christian 
spirit amid pagan surroundings, and by the example of 
their lives aid their spiritual leaders in the conquest of 
souls. Their instruction was not merely religious; the 
literary and practical elements were not neglected, and 
gradually there was developed in the cloister that sys- 
tem of education which lasted throughout ten centuries 
and supplied the means of preparation for the various 
careers open to the young, even the military. 

From the eighth to the twelfth century the monasteries 

26II John, 4. 



THE SEVENTH AND EIGHTH CENTURIES 21 

eclipse all other forms of Christian education, and it 
can be broadly stated that their history from the sixth '^\^, 
to the sixteenth century is the history of education." 
They were not, however, the only schools existing during 
that period, nor were the episcopal and presbyteral. 
The imperial schools of ancient Rome subsisted to the end 
of the seventh century in Gaul, Italy, Spain, and every 
part of the Roman world. In Italy lay teachers not only 
taught in these public schools, but they also maintained 
private institutions. They had done this even when the 
civil law forbade it, and as the State schools gradually 
fell away these private venture schools became more 
firmly established. Some of them like the public schools, 
were subsidized by the municipalities, and they, in one 
form or another, never ceased to exist throughout the 
entire Middle Ages. They have been regarded as the 
link connecting the old Roman education with the uni- 
versities, for until the eleventh century these lay teachers 
pursued their courses side by side with the ecclesiastical 
schools. Naturally they would seem to have been for 
the especial benefit of the laity, for here in Italy the 
episcopal and parish schools offered all necessary advan- 
tages for the scholastic preparation of clerics,^ but the 
lay schools also had some students who later became 
priests.^^ 

In ancient Ireland a somewhat similar condition ex- 
isted. In addition to the monasteries scattered over the 
island, and educating hundreds, and, at times, thousands 
of students, both clerical and lay,^« there were lay schools 

2^Monroe. Text-Book in the History of Education. 245. New York 1909 
2«02anam La Civil.sation au Cinquieme Siecle. I. 260; 11 366 
29For number of students, cf. Joyce P W Son'al Hict^r,. ^jr a • ^ 
Ireland I 409. London. 1903. F^r'number of' I'Stedefa^d'lnL^ 
Gougaud. Dom Louis. Les Chretientes Celtiques. 82. Paris 1911 For lav 
students m monasteries, we might cite an example "where such sfudents 
Isl 'nf'lt.oned incidentally .-We read in the Four Masters under Td 
bt'J^'/^^'"^'^u ?'"^ °^ Connaught. was assassinated a" this time 

h heS3 of his^?2h V"'' ' T^T '" ?^ ^°"^^^ -^ Clonard and wh"n 
ffii^ . I } ,, ^ murder, he and a party of twenty-seyen of his 
fellow students, all young laymen from Connaught. sallied for?h from 
the^college, and commg to the house of the assassin, beheaded him.'' Joyc? 



22 EDUCATION OF THE LAITY IN THE MIDDLE AGES 

and a lay professorate, and it is believed tliat in this 
period laymen generally had better opportunities for 
obtaining a higher or university education than they had 
in any other country of Western Europe. Large num- 
bers of clerics and laymen came from England and the 
Continent in the seventh and eighth centuries,^" and 
when later, in the ninth and tenth centuries, the Irish 
scholars went abroad, * ' they were at once entrusted with 
the highest offices in the Continental schools, and proved 
themselves to be not only amongst the ablest theologians 
of the time, but also the first men of that age in Greek 
and Latin literature. "^^ In the lay schools more than 
in the monasteries the Gaelic language was taught, and 
*'not merely the language, but also the history, the an- 
tiquities, the laws, and the literature of the nation." 

The learned professions of Poetry, Law and History 
which then existed and were open to the laity, had, so 
to speak, their recruiting schools. The bards, who also 
had their schools, were not included in the first class, 
because they had not received the systematic training 
that the profession of the poet required. Each profes- 
sion had its grades or degrees, that of Poetry, for in- 
stance, consisted of seven, and the course for learners 
extended over twelve years. The Brehons represented 
the profession of Law, and the Chroniclers that of His- 
tory, and each body had its various grades and distinc- 



soSpeaking of the yellow plague of 664, the Venerable Bede says : "This 
pestilence did no less harm in the island of Ireland. Many of the nobility 
and of the lower ranks of the English nation were there at that time, who 
in the days of Bishops Finan and Colman forsaking their native island, 
retired thither, either for the sake of divine studies, or of a more continent 
life: and some of them presently devoted themselves to a monastic life: 
others chose rather to apply themselves to study, going about from one 
master's cell to another. The Scots willingly received them all, and took 
care to supply them with food, as also to furnish them with books to read, 
and their teaching, gratis." Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum b. iii, 
c. xxvii. Translation of J. A. Giles, London, 1892. Many, and perhaps 
most of these hermits were not priests. Cfr. Gougaud, op. cit., 83. 

3iHealy, Ireland's Ancient Schools and Scholars, 597. Turner. Irish 
Teachers in the Carolingian Revival, Catholic University Bulletin, XIII, 
382, 567. Sandys. History of Classical Scholarship, I, 451. Taylor, Classi- 
cal Heritage of the Middle Ages, 44. New York, 1901. 



THE SEVENTH AND EIGHTH CENTURIES 23 

tions. " It is quite clear, ' ' says Dr. Healy, * ' from various 
references in our Annals, and in the Brehon Code, that 
these three professions were kept quite distinct from 
the sixth to the twelfth century, and that they were 
taught by different professors, and in different schools — 
these professors being generally but not always laymen." 
The school of Tuaim Drecain, founded in the early part 
of the seventh century by St. Bricin, is the earliest re- 
ferred to in the records of the time, but the writings of 
twelve or thirteen ancient Gaelic scholars give ground 
for the conclusion that these schools flourished in the 
sixth and seventh centuries.^" 

''A lay college," says Dr. Joyce, "generally comprised 
three distinct schools, held in three different houses near 
each other ; a custom that came down from pagan times. 
We are told that Cormac Mac Art, King of Ireland from 
A. D. 254 to 277, founded three schools at Tara, one for 
the study of military science, one for law, and one for 
general literature. St. Bricin 's College at Tomregan 
(Tuaim Drecain), near Ballj^connell in Cavan, founded in 
the seventh century, which though conducted by an 
ecclesiastic, was the type of the lay schools, comprised 
one school for law, one for classics, and one for poetry 
and general Gaelic learning, each school under a special 
druimoli or head professor. (0 'Curry, Manners and 
Customs of the Ancient Irish, I, 92.) And coming to a 
much later period, we know that in the fifteenth century 
the O'Clery's of Donegal kept three schools — namely, 
for literature, for history, and for poetry.'"^ 

The nobility enjoyed still another avenue to learning 
in addition to the monastery and episcopal schools. The 
palace was often the scene of school activity, and some 
of the most distinguished ecclesiastics and laymen of 
the early Church of Gaul were educated there. The best 



320p. cit., 600. 
330p. cit., 420. 



24 EDUCATIOISr OF THE LAITY IN THE MIDDLE AGES 

equipped teachers were retained by the nobility for these 
academies which, in Gaul, date from the reigns of the 
sons of Clovis I, and if townships vied with one another 
to obtain the services of distinguished grammarians and 
rhetoricians, the nobles were even more jealous of enjoy- 
ing in their courts the presence of the saintly and the 
learned.^* 

Many young clerics were attached to the courts of the 
Franks, and engaged in chanting the divine offices. The 
palace served for them as a training school. They learned 
to perform their duties in the choir, and they also pur- 
sued the studies which completed the ecclesiastical edu- 
cation of the time. The Merovingians furthermore, like 
the Anglo-Saxons and the Lombards, followed the ancient 
custom of the Germans, to which Tacitus alludes, ^^ of 
receiving into their palaces the sons of other noblemen 
whom they treated as members of the household, edu- 
cating and rearing them as they did their own children. 
The youths were the wards of their protector ; they acted 
as his aides in military expeditions; they graced his 
court festivities ; they were also representatives of their 
families and pledges of fidelity to the king or prince. 
As their future careers were assured while they held 
the favor of the court, a place in the palace school was 
eagerly sought for the ambitious and promising sons of 
the nobility. Here in a training school for public life in 
Church and State, the pupils were instructed in the sacred 
and profane sciences; they learned to speak and write 
Latin, and some of them acquired skill in versification; 
the laymen as well as the clerics were made familiar 
with music, and for those whose calling demanded it. 



340zanam, La Civilisation Chretienne chez les Francs, IV, 501. In plac- 
ing this institution as far back as the reigns of the sons of Clovis I, we 
are not unaware of the contention of some that it had its real beginnings 
in the time of Charlemagne. Cfr. Maitre, Les Ecoles Episcopales et 
Monastiques de L'Occident, Chap. IV. Parisw 1866. 

35Germania, XIII. 



THE SEVENTH AND EIGHTH CENTURIES 25 

exercise in military tactics was provided. History, 
Roman Law, and the national traditions entered into the 
courses generally given in these palace schools.'*' St. 
Ouen, Archbishop of Rouen, St. Chrodegang, Bishop 
of Metz, and St. Benedict of Aniane, went forth from 
the palace school and distinguished themselves in public 
careers before being called to the service of the Church. 
This institution, of course, did not receive in this early 
period the same distinction, nor attain to the same degree 
of efficiency, as in the reign of Charlemagne. 

Meanwhile the monasteries are responsible for two 
conspicuous phases of educational activity; one carrying 
the light of the Gospel and civilization to the barbarians, 
the other preserving amid the ravages of time the treas- 
ures of learning. St. Boniface represents the first phase, 
and the Venerable Bede, the other. Both the products 
of English monasticism, they reflect at once the ideal of 
Christian education, and the degree of attainment 
achieved at that time in the schools. Saints and scholars, 
they labored not for themselves but for the glory of the 
truth of God, and the spread of His Kingdom on earth. 
The Venerable Bede never ceased to study, to teach, and 
to write, until the last hours of his life, and in the peace- 
ful enclosure of his monastery manifested that same in- 
dustry and energy to transmit to his brethren and pos- 
terity the blessings of learning which characterized the 
work of St. Boniface as the indefatigable missionary. 

The work of St. Boniface that interests us here was the 
establishment and organization of schools everywhere 
throughout the wide field of his missionary labors. In 
Friesland, Thuringia, Bavaria, or in Gaul, wherever he 
sought to plant the seed of faith, or to build up the prev- 
iously established Church, he attended also to the founda- 



36For discussion of the Palace School under the Merovingians, cfr 
Revue des Questions Historiques, I^XI, 490, by E. Vacandard: LXXIV» 
552, by A. S. Wilde; LXXVI, 549, by E. Vacandard. 



'26 EDUCATION OF THE LAITY IN THE MIDDLE AGES 

tion or reformation of monasteries and schools. He in- 
duced great numbers of monks to follow him, and he ob- 
tained the services of Sts. Walburga, Thecla, and Lioba 
from England to assist in the establishment of convents 
for women and schools for girls.^^ In a letter to Lioba 
he sanctioned her taking of a girl into the monastery 
for the purposes of instruction. One of his chief en- 
actments in the first German synod, held in 743, was to 
make the rule of St. Benedict the official guide for the 
religious in his province.^^ As a direct result of his 
labors in Bavaria alone over twenty-nine monasteries 
were either founded or reopened within the space of fifty 
years. Fulda, the great monastery of North Germany, 
was founded under his direction by his disciple, St. 
Sturm. 

The correspondence of the great Apostle of Germany 
with the Holy See was almost incessant. None was more 
careful or anxious than he to do all things according to 
the will of the Vicar of Christ, and in consequence his 
projects had all the necessary papal sanction even before 
he was placed over the Church in Germany. He also 
maintained a continuous correspondence with the lead- 
ers of the Church in England. By means of it he had 
obtained many of his colaborers on the missions, religious 
for the cloisters, and in a general way many such valu- 
able auxiliaries and necessities as books, vestments, and 
•church supplies. He in turn exercised an influence on 
the affairs of the English Church. Through his advice 
to Cuthbert, Archbishop of Canterbury, and his corre- 
spondence with Ethelbald, King of Mercia, the Council of 
Cloveshoe was convened in 747 for the correction of 
abuses and the restoration of ecclesiastical discipline — a 
council of singular importance in the history of English 
schools. 



37Drane, Christian Schools and Scholars. II, 151. Eckenstein, Woman 
under Monasticism, 137. Cambridge, 1896. 
^sMansi, Coll. Con. XII, 365. 



THE SEVENTH AND EIGHTH CENTURIES 27 

The interests of learning and the schools were foremost 
in the minds of the bishops who attended. Canon VII, 
for instance, is a strong injunction directed to those in 
charge of the schools to rekindle in the hearts of their 
subjects a greater devotion to study and teaching. They 
fear for the welfare of letters and especially for the 
sacred sciences, and they are gravely concerned for the 
future preparation of those who, as teachers of the faith- 
ful, are to work for the "lucrum animarum laudemque 
regis aeterni. " Consequently, while urging attention to 
all types of schools represented by those of the bishops, 
the priests, the abbots and abbesses, they advocate in 
the strongest terms the education of the boys. ' ' Proinde 
coerceantur, et exerceantur in scholis pueri ad dilec- 
tionem sacrae scientiae, ut bene eruditi inveniri possint 
ad omnimodam ecclesiae Dei utilitatem." The compre- 
hensive nature of the educational uplift intended by the 
Fathers can be seen from the text of the canon. All 
schools are included — those for boys and those for girls, 
although it is quite clear that the chief concern of the 
bishops is for those schools where young men were pre- 
pared to discharge the offices of clerics and priests in 
the service of the Church. The canon is as follows: 

''Septimo decreverunt condicto, ut episcopi, abbates, 
atque abbatissae * * * studeant, et diligenti cura 
provideant, ut per familias suas lectionis studium in- 
desinenter in plurimorum pectoribus versetur, et ad 
lucrum animarum laudemque regis aeterni multorum 
vocibus innotescat. Nam dictu dolendum est, quod his 
temporibus perpauci inveniantur, qui ex intimo corde 
sacrae scientiae rapiantur amore, et vix aliquid elaborare 
in discendo voluerint : quin potius a juvenili aetate vani- 
tatibus diversis et inanis gloriae cupiditatibus occupan- 
tur: atque praesentis vitae instabilitatem plusquam 
sacrarum scripturarum assiduitatem vagabunda mente 
sequuntur. Proinde coerceantur et exerceantur in scholis 
pueri ad dilectionem sacrae scientiae: ut per hoc bene 



28 EDUCATION OF THE LAITY IN THE MIDDLE AGES 

eruditi inveniri possint ad omnimodam ecclesiae Dei 
utilitatem: nee sint rectores terrenae tarn avidi opera- 
tionis ut domus Dei desolatione spiritalis ornaturae 
vilescat. "^^ 

In the great revival of learning wliieli began towards 
the end of the century the works of Bede and St. Boni- 
face are not entirely lost to view. The institutions with 
which they were connected, and the men whom they in- 
fluenced were preparatory causes of the movement then 
undertaken by the Emperor, Charles the Great, and the 
English scholar, Alcuin. One of Bede's pupils and closest 
friends was Egbert, who became the archbishop of York 
in 732, and founded the cathedral school in which Alcuin 
was educated." St Boniface had anointed and crowned 
Pepin, the father of Charlemagne, and had obtained from 
him the royal protection of so many of the monasteries, 
which, like Fulda, were to be the effective agents of the 
new scholastic reform. 



3«Mansi, Coll. Con. XII, 397. 

^^West, Alcuin and the Rise of Christian Schools, 31, New York, 1892. 



CHAPTER III 

KEVIVAL UNDER CHARLEMAGNE AND ALCUIN 

Alcuin held the office of scholasticus in the cathedral 
school of York when he was invited by Charlemagne to 
assume charge of the Palace School. His fame as the 
great schoolmaster of Britain to whom numerous schol- 
ars from the Continent resorted for instruction and 
training, had undoubtedly reached the imperial court 
before Charlemagne met him in Italy, about the year 
780. Two years later the negotiations were completed 
for his transfer to the Continent, and his installation as 
''Master of the Palace School." 

The Court then resided at Aachen, and when Alcuin 
arrived with his three companions and assistants, he 
found an eager group of pupils awaiting him. The king 
and queen, their two sons and three daughters, the king 's 
sister, Gisela, the courtiers and scions of noble families 
then connected with the Court, came anxiously under his 
tutelage. Alcuin with the aid of his assistants, succeeded 
not only in meeting the requirements of this hetero- 
geneous class of pupils, but, furthermore, inflamed them 
with a real love for learning, and an enthusiasm for ex- 
tending its delights to others. The School of the Palace 
steadily increased in the number of its pupils, and at- 
tained a worthy fame throughout Europe. Those seri- 
ously in search of knowledge, along with those ambitious 
for positions in the royal service, endeavored to enter its 
classes, and, in consequence, many of the most learned 
and distinguished men of the time were educated there. 
Among the students are recorded the names of Einhard, 



30 EDUCATION OF THE LAITY IN THE MIDDLE AGES 

the biographer of Charlemagne,^^ a layman who re- 
ceived his earlier education in the monastery of Fulda; 
Riculf, who became archbishop of Mainz; Arno, the 
archbishop of Salzburg ; and Theodulf , bishop of Orleans. 
The king had found in Alcuin a rare counselor as well 
as instructor, and because of his devotion to learning 
and his confidence in Alcuin, ardently embraced a plan 
for the restoration of schools throughout the realm. 
With the Palace School as head of the system, he sought 
to revivify all educational institutions down to the ele- 
mentary or parish schools. For this end, in 787, he ad- 
dressed a capitulary to the abbots of the monasteries, and 
to all the bishops of Frankland, expressing his regret 
over the decline of letters, and exhorting them to pro- 
mote the spirit of study and the work of teaching in their 
respective communities. The decree is preserved in the 
form of a letter to Baugulf, the abbot of Fulda.^^ From 
the context it appears that the bishops were included in 
the decree, but in all probability a different form of noti- 
fication was sent to them. Charlemagne's concern for 
a stricter observance of monastic discipline, a more wide- 
spread devotion to the study of letters, and the art of 
teaching can be seen from the text of the capitulary 
which is here reproduced.^^ The translation is, with 
some modifications, that of J. Bass Mullinger. 

"Charles, by the Grace of God, King of the Franks and 
of the Lombards, and Patrician of the Romans, to Bau- 
gulf, Abbot, and his whole congregation, also to our f aith- 



"Migne, Pat. Lat. XCVII 

"Migne, Pat. Lat. XCVIII, 859; Monumenta Germaniae Historica: Le- 
gura II, Capitul. I, 79. Boretius. 

""Karolus, gratia Dei Rex Francorum et Longobardorum, ac Patricius 
Romanorum, Baugulfo Abbati et omni congregationi, tibi etiam com- 
missis fidelibus oratoribus nostris, in omnipotentis Dei nomine amabilem 
direximus salutem. Notum igitur sit Deo placitae devotioni vestrae, quia 
nos una cum fidelibus nostris consideravimus utile esse, ut episcopia et 
monasteria nobis, Christo propitio, ad gubernandum commissa, praeter 
regularis vitae ordinem atque sanctae religionis conversationem, etiam 
in litterarum meditationibus, eis qui donante Domino discere possunt. 



REVIVAL UNDER CHARLEMAGNE AND ALCUIN 31 

ful committed to his care, in the name of God Almighty, 
friendly greeting. Be it known to your devotion already 
pleasing to God, that in conjunction with our faithful 
we have considered it useful that there be in the bishop- 
rics and monasteries, by the favor of Christ committed 
to our care, besides the observance of the regular life and 
the practice of holy religion, literary studies, each to 
teach and learn them according to his ability and the 
divine assistance. For as the observance of the rule 
promotes good morals, so diligence in learning and teach- 
ing gives order and elegance to sentences, and those who 
desire to please God by right living ought not to neglect 
to please him by right speaking. For it is written : * By 
thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou 
shalt be condemned.' (Matt. XII, 37.) And although 
right doing be preferable to mere knowing, nevertheless, 
the knowledge of what is right precedes right action. 
Everyone should, therefore, strive to understand what he 
desires to accomplish, and this understanding will be the 
fuller in proportion as the tongue in praising Almighty 
God is freer from error. If false speaking is to be 
shunned by all men, how much the more is it to be shunned 
by those who have been chosen for this alone — that they 



secundum uniuscujusque capacitatem, docendi studium debeant impendere. 
Qualiter sicut regularis norma honestatem morum, ita quoque docendi et 
discendi instantia ordinet et ornet seriem verborum, ut, qui Deo placere 
appetunt recte vivendo, ei etiam placere non negligant recte loquendo. 
Scriptum est enim : 'Aut ex verbis tuis justificaberis, aut ex verbis tuis 
condemnaberis.' (Matt. XII, 37.) Quamvis enim melius est (sit) bene 
facere quam nosse, prius tamen est nosse quam facere. Debet ergo quisque 
discere quod optat implere ; ut tanto uberius quid agere debeat, intelligat 
anima, quanto in omnipotentis Dei laudibus sine mendaciorum offendicu- 
lis cucurrerit lingua. Nam cum omnibus hominibus vitanda sint men- 
dacia, quanto magis illi secundum possibilitatem declinare debent qui ad 
hoc solummodo probantur electi, ut servire specialiter debeant veritati. 
Nam cum nobis in his annis a nonnullis monasteriis saepius scripta diri- 
gerentur, in quibus quod pro nobis fratres ibidem commorantes in sacris 
et piis orationibus decertarent, significaretur, cognovimus in plerisque 
praefatis conscriptionibus eorumdem et sensus rectos et sermones in- 
cultos : quia quod pia devotio interius fideliter dictabat, hoc exterius, 
propter negligentiam discendi. lingua inerudita exprimere sine repre- 
hensione non valebat. Unde factum est ut timere inciperemus ne forte, 
sicut minor erat in scribendo prudentia, ita quoque et multo minor esset 



32 EDUCATION OF THE LAITY IN THE MIDDLE AGES 

be servants of the truth! During recent years we have 
often received letters from different monasteries informing 
us that at their sacred services the brethren offered up 
prayers on our behalf, and we have observed that the 
thoughts contained in these letters, though in themselves 
most just, were expressed in uncouth language, and while 
pious devotion dictated the sentiments, the unlettered 
tongue was unable to express them aright. Hence there 
has arisen in our minds the fear lest, if the skill to write 
rightly were thus lacking, so too would the power of 
rightly comprehending the Sacred Scriptures be far from 
fitting, and we all know that though verbal errors be 
dangerous, errors of the understanding are much more 
60. We exhort you, therefore, not only not to neglect the 
study of letters, but to apply yourselves thereto with 
perseverance and with that humility which is well pleas- 
ing to God, so that you may be able to penetrate with 
greater ease and certainty the mysteries of the Holy 
Scriptures. For as these contain images, tropes, and 
similar figures, it is impossible to doubt that the reader 
will arrive far more readily at the spiritual sense ac- 
cording as he is better instructed in learning. Let there, 
therefore, be chosen for this work men who are both able 



quam recte esse debuisset in sanctarum scripturarum ad intelligendum 
sapientia. Et bene novimus omnes, quia, quamvis periculosi sint errores 
verborum, multo periculosiores sunt errores sensuum. Quamobrem 
hortamur vos litterarum studia non solum non negligere, verum etiam 
humillima et Deo placita intentione ad hoc certatim discerc, ut facilius et 
rectius divinarum scripturarum mysteria valeatis penetrare. Cum autem 
in sacris paginis schemata, tropi, et caetera his similia inserta inveniantur, 
nulli dubium est quod ea unusquisque legens tanto citius spiritualiter intel- 
ligit, quanto prius in litterarum magisterio plenius instructus fuerit. 
Tales vero ad hoc opus viri eligantur, qui et voluntatem et possibilitatem 
discendi et desiderium habeant alios instruendi. Et hoc tantum ea in- 
tentione agatur, qua devotione a nobis praecipitur. Optamus enim vos, 
sicut decet Ecclesiac milites, et interius devotos et exterius doctos cas- 
tosque bene vivendo, et scholasticos bene loquendo ; ut quicumque vos 
propter nomen Domini et sanctae conversationis noblitatem ad vivendum 
cxpetierit, sicut de aspectu vestro aedificatur visus, ita quoque de sapientia 
vestra, quam in legendo seu in cantando perceperit, instructus, omnipo- 
tenti Domino gratias agendo gaudens redeat. Hujus itaque epistolae ex- 
«mplaria ad omnes suffragantes tuosque coepiscopos et per universa mon- 
•steria dirigi non negligas, si gratiam nostram habere vis." 



REVIVAL UNDER CHARLEMAGNE AND ALCUIN 33 

and willing to learn, and who are desirous of instructing 
others, and let them apply themselves to the work with 
a zeal equalling the earnestness with which we recom- 
mend it to them. It is our wish that you may be what 
it behooves the soldiers of the Church to be, — religious 
in heart, learned in discourse, pure in act, eloquent in 
speech ; so that all who approach your house in order to 
invoke the Divine Master or to behold the excellence of 
the religious life, may be edified in beholding you and in- 
structed in hearing your discourse or chant, and may 
return home rejoicing, and rendering thanks to God Al- 
mighty. Fail not as thou regardest our favor to send a 
copy of this letter to all thy suffragans and to all of the 
monasteries."^* 

One could scarcely expect saner advice as to the means 
of accomplishing the revival in the chief educational in- 
stitutions, the monasteries and episcopal schools. Men 
were wanted who had "et voluntatem et possibilitatem 
discendi, et desiderium alios instruendi. ' ' At the same 
time Charlemagne obtained at Rome a corps of instruc- 
tors in singing, grammar, arithmetic, whom he brought 
to Frankland and sent to several monasteries to assist in 
carrying out the reform.*^ 

Other capitularies came forth as, for instance, those of 
789 and 804, in explanation of the means to be adopted 
in order to comply with the imperial demands. These 
were addressed to the monks and the secular clerics, and 
affected the manner of their discipline, studies, and 
preparation of candidates for orders; but a capitulary 
of 789 has an especially interesting order in regard to 
the elementary school. It says that every monastery 
must have its school, and there boys are to be taught 
grammar, arithmetic, singing, music, and the psalter. 



"Mnllinger, Schools of Charles the Great, 97. New York, 1911. 
"Jaffe, Monumenta Carolina, 343. (Bibliotheca Rerum Germanicarum, 
W.) 



34 EDUCATION OF THE LAITY IN THE MIDDLE AGES 

The books placed in their hands are to be of correct com- 
position, and to be kept in good condition. This regu- 
lation appears under the chapter '^De ministris altaris 
et de scola," and is as follows: — 

"Sed et hoc flagitamus vestram almitatem (altitu- 
dinem) ut ministri altaris Dei suum ministerium bonis 
moribus ornent, seu alii canonici observent eorum or- 
dines, vel monachi propositum consecrationis. Obse- 
cramus, ut bonam et probabilem habeant conversa- 
tionem, sicut ipse Dominus in evangelio praecepit: 
^Sic luceat lux vestra coram hominibus, ut videant 
opera vestra bona, et glorificent patrem vestrem, qui 
in coelis est:' ut eorum bona conversatione multi pro- 
trahantur ad servitium Dei. Et non solum servilis 
conditionis infantes, sed etiam ingenuorum filios ag- 
gregent sibique socient. Et ut scolae legentium puer- 
orum fiant; psalmos, notas, cantus, compotum, gram- 
maticam per singula monasteria vel episcopias, et 
libros Catholicos bene emendate (emendatos) ; quia 
saepe dum bene aliquid Deum rogare cupiunt, sed per 
inemendatos libros male rogant. Et pueros vestros 
non sinite eas vel legendo vel scribendo corrumpere. 
Et si opus est evangelium et psalterium et missale 
scribere, perfectae aetatis homines scribant cum omni 
diligentia. ' '** 

Another capitulary of 802 enjoins that ''every one 
should send his son to study letters, and that the child 
should remain at school with all diligence until he should 
become well instructed in learning."^' 

The exact extent of the observance of those decrees can 
perhaps never be determined. How many monasteries, 
not previously conducting schools, were led to do so in 
compliance with the orders of the king is impossible to 
tell, owing to the condition of the records of the time, but 
the following facts lead one to infer that there was a 



*«Migne, Pat. Lat. XCVII, 517. 

*"'Ut unusquisque filium suum litteras ad discendum mittat, et ibi cum 
omni solicitudine permaneat usque dum bene instructus perveniat." Capi- 
tula Examinationis Generalis, 12. Mon. Ger. Hist. Legum, II, Cap. I, 235. 
(Boretius.) 



REVIVAL UNDER CHARLEMAGNE AND ALCUIN 60 

rather general obedience to authority in this respect. 
In a few years the court had moved to many different 
places, from Aachen to Thionville, thence to Worms, to 
Mainz, and finally to Frankfort; Alcuin and others had 
many opportunities to inspect the monasteries far and 
near, and to ascertain their observance of the orders, and 
when, in 796, he retired to the monastery of Tours, he 
expressed no dissatisfaction over the results of the plan 
of reform. 

On the other hand, sufficient evidence remains to show 
that in many of the dioceses a real restoration of schools 
took place, and a movement resulted which meant much 
for the establishment of secondary and elementary 
schools. In the diocese of Orleans the bishop Theodulf, 
a former pupil of the Palace School, and apparently Al- 
cuin 's successor as state minister of education, endeav- 
ored to carry out all the details of the capitularies affect- 
ing education. He made his episcopal school the equal 
of any in the realm, and, in a capitulary addressed to the 
clergy of his diocese, embodied a famous decree on the 
establishment of elementary schools — a decree which will 
reappear in many later Church councils, and which was 
for a long time erroneously attributed to the Sixth 
Ecumenical Council of Constantinople, held in 681. The 
priests of city and country were ordered to have schools 
for the children of their parishes, and to instruct the lit- 
tle ones in all charity, remembering that ''they that are 
learned shall shine as the brightness of the firmament: 
and they that instruct many to justice, as stars for all 
eternity." They were also forbidden to exact fees from 
the pupils or to accept any remuneration except what 
might be voluntarily offered by the parents. The decree 
follows : — 

"Presbyteri per villas et vicos scholas habeant. Et 
si quilibet fidelium suos parvulos ad discendas litteras 
eis commendare vult, eos non renuant suscipere et 
docere; sed cum summa caritate eos doceant, atten- 



36 EDUCATION OF THE LAITY IN THE MIDDLE AGES 

dentes illud quod scriptum est: Qui autem docti 
fuerint, fulgebunt quasi splendor firmamenti: et qui 
ad justitiam erudiunt multos fulgebunt quasi stellae 
in perpetuas aeternitates. Cum ergo eos docent, nihil 
ab eis pretii exigant, nee aliquid ab eis accipiant; ex- 
cepto, quod eis parentes eorum caritatis studio sua 
voluntate obtulerint. ' '^^ 

In canons I and II of the capitulary the learned bishop 
gives a beautiful exhortation to the clergy to renew their 
piety and their devotion to study. ''Oportet vos et 
assiduitatem habere legendi, et instantiam orandi. 
* * * Haec sunt enim arma, lectio videlicet, et oratio, 
quibus diabolus expugnatur: haec sunt instrumenta qui- 
bus aeterna beatitude acquiritur: his armis vitia com- 
primuntur: his alimentis virtutes nutriuntur. "^^ The of- 
fice of teaching is placed in the most inspiring and stimu- 
lating light. ''Hortamur vos paratos esse ad docendas 
plebes." The faithful also are admonished lest they be 
found wanting in their duties towards the children, and 
the latter throughout their entire period of instruction 
must be held to the practice of obedience and all Chris- 
tian virtues. 

These free parish schools established by Theodulf en- 
couraged the bishops and nobility to found and to endow 
institutions for gratuitous education. In some of the 
monasteries it was customary to accept fees from the 
scholars of the exterior school, and gradually these 
schools became rather distinguished for the number of 
wealthy pupils they received. The poor, in consequence, 
were loath to attend them. A striking protest was raised 
against this practice in the monastery of Tours by Amal- 
ric, archbishop of the diocese. Since the time of Alcuin 
the "schola externa" had greatly developed, and the ma- 
terial possessions of the monastery made it one of the 
richest in France. The prelate wanted to see all possible 
barriers to the reception of the poor removed, and in 843 



'Migne, CV, 196. 
"Ibid., canon II. 



REVIVAL UNDER CHARLEMAGNE AND ALCUIN 37 

gave the monks a generous donation to be used for the 
maintenance of the poor students. Charles the Bald 
confirmed his action for free education by a capitulary.^^ 

William, the abbot of St. Benigne, in the same century 
opened in his monastery a free school where the scholars 
were boarded and clothed gratuitously. The general 
sentiment was that an education could not be bought, nor 
learning taxed. The abbey of St. Peter, in Salzburg, 
bore this inscription over its portals : ' ' Discere si cupias, 
gratis, quod quaeris, habebis," — a line from the poem of 
Alcuin, "De via duplici ad scholam et cauponam. "^^ 

Other bishops throughout France followed the example 
of Theodulf and commanded priests to give free instruc- 
tion to the children of their parishes, or they emulated 
Betto, the bishop of Langres, who founded public schools 
in his episcopal city and diocese.^^ Some slight record 
of their various endeavors is found in the decrees and 
canons of the provincial councils and diocesan synods 
of that century. In the council of Chalons-sur-Saone, 
held in 813, an unmistakable effort was made to continue 
the movement begun by Charlemagne, both for the bene- 
fit of the clergy and the laity. The third canon of that 
council reads : 

''Oportet etiam, ut sicut dominus Imperator Carolus, 
vir singularis mansuetudinis, fortitudinis, prudentiae, 
justitiae, et temperantiae praecepit, scholas constituant, 
in quibus et litteras solertia disciplinae, et sacrae scrip- 
turae documenta discantur: et tales ibi erudiantur, qui- 



5"Maitre, Les Ecoles Episcopales et Monastiques, 49, 203. 

"■'Migne, Pat. Lat. CI, 757; Mullinger, 134. 

"Of Betto, Muteau says : "Ce fiit dans les dernieres annees du VIII 
siecle seulement que Betto, eveque de Langres, le bienfaiteur de Saint- 
Etienne, 'estalalit dans Langres et dans son diocese des escholes publiques 
et des maistres pour enseigner la grammaire, la rhetorique et rarithme- 
tique, I'interpretation des escritures saintes, la musique et le plain chant 
et aultres arts liberaux. L'on adjoute que par les memes ordres du roy 
Ton y dressa une espece d'academie avec privilesges et exemption pour 
les exercices militaires, comme de tirer Tare et de I'arbaleste, de manier 
une espee et un bouclier, en un mot, de s'exercer aux armes.' Extrait 
d'un ancien manuscrit cite par Frangois Gauthier dans sa notice histor. 
sur le college de Langres." Les Ecoles et Colleges en Province, 23. 



38 EDUCATION OF THE LAITY IN THE MIDDLE AGES 

bus merito dicatur a Domino: 'Vos estis sal terrae:' et 
qui condimentum plebibus esse valeant, et quorum doc- 
trina non solum diversis haeresibus, verum etiam anti- 
christi monitis, et ipsi antichristo resistatur: ut merito 
de illis in laude ecclesiae dicatur: 'Mille clypei pendent 
ex ea, omnis armatura fortium.' "^^ 

A council of Paris, convened in 829, did not hesitate 
to suggest to Louis the Pious, the successor of Charle- 
magne, that to perpetuate the traditions of his father in 
regard to education, and to further his own projects, the 
most feasible plan would be to found three or more public 
schools in important centers of the Empire. The monas- 
teries were evidently not sufficient for the needs of the 
time in the field of higher learning, and churchmen were 
anxious that a movement so conspicuously inaugurated 
as that of Charlemagne should be continued under better 
circumstances. The memorial of the bishops to the em- 
peror contains their suggestion. *' Similiter obnixe ac 
simpliciter vestrae celsitudini suggerimus, ut morem 
paternum sequentes, saltem in tribus congruentissimis 
imperii vestri locis, scholae publicae ex vestra auctori- 
tate fiant : ut labor patris vestri et vester per incuriam, 
quod absit, labefactando non depereat. Quoniam ex hoc 
facto et magna utilitas, et honor sanctae Dei ecclesiae, et 
vobis magnum mercedis emolumentum, et memoria 
sempiterna accrescet. ' "'^ 

The church of Rheims was governed in the middle of 
this century by the learned archbishop Hincmar, who in 
his directions to the deans and clerics appointed to assist 
him in the canonical inspection of the parishes showed a 
special solicitude for the school. Each pastor was ex- 
pected to have a cleric with him who could teach in the 
school and assist in the services of the church. "Si 
habeat clericum, qui posset tenere scholam, aut legere 



53Hardouin Acta Conciliorum, IV, 1033. Paris, 1714. 
^Mansi, Coll. Con. XIV, 599. 



REVIVAL UNDER CHARLEMAGNE AND ALCUIN 39 

epistolam, aut canere valeat, prout necessarium sibi 
videtur. ' '^^ 

The archbishop of Orleans in 858 had legislated to the 
same effect. In the canon which he had promulgated it 
can be seen that the priest was responsible for the train- 
ing of the school teacher, and the character of the educa- 
tion supplied by the school. "Ut unusquisque presbyter 
suum habeat clericum quern religiose educare procuret. 
Et si possibilitas illi est, scholam in eccelsia sua habere 
non negligat : solerterque caveat, ut quos ad erudiendum 
suscipit, caste sinceriterque nutriat. "^"^ 

Herardus, the archbishop of Tours, in that same year, 
858, issued a similar decree: — "Ut scholas presbyteri pro 
posse habeant, et libros emendatos. "^'^ In all of these 
canons of councils, and capitularies of bishops, the par- 
ents and sponsors of children are reminded of their 
duty to rear and properly to educate the young. The 
capitulary of Louis the Pious, which appeared about the 
year 825, seems to have been the model for many that 
came later. It reads : '*Ut parentes filios suos, et patrini 
eos quos de fonte lavacri suscipiunt, erudire summopere 
studeant: illi, quia eos genuerunt et eis a Domino dati 
sunt: isti, quia pro eis fideiussores existunt."^^ That of 
Herardus of Tours required this attention from the 
parent and godparent, even towards the very young. "Ut 
patres et patrini filios vel filiolos erudiant et enutriant: 
isti quia sunt patres, et isti quia fideiussores."^'' 

The council of Eome, called by Pope Eugenius II in 
853, acted upon the question for the direction of bishops 
of the universal Church. Learning that devotion to let- 
ters and the sciences had fallen away in certain places, 
the bishops stipulated that in all the dioceses and par- 
ishes a sufficient number of teachers should be established 



^Capitula presbyteris data, XI. Mansi, Coll. Con. XV, 480. 

*«Mansi, XV, 506. 

"Hardouin, Acta Con. V, 451, 

"•Migne, Pat. Lat. XCVII, 550. 

"Hardouin, V, 452. 



40 EDUCATION OF THE LAITY IN THE MIDDLE AGES 

wKo would assiduously promote the study of the liberal 
arts, and the doctrines of the Church. Canon XXXIV 
contains this decree: — ''De quibusdam locis ad nos refer- 
tur, non magistros, neque curam inveniri pro studio 
litterarum. Idcirco in universis episcopiis, subjectisque 
plebibus, et aliis locis in quibus necessitas occurrerit, 
omnino cura et diligentia habeatur, ut magistri et doc- 
tores constituantur : qui studia litterarum, liberaliumque 
artium ac sancta habentes dogmata, assidue doceant, 
quia in his maxime divina manifestantur atque declaran- 
tur mandata."^*' 

This great mass of legislation on the part of the 
Church and the State was not without its immediate 
effect in the monastic, episcopal, and parish schools. In 
the first mentioned the effect can best be seen when under 
Louis the Pious, the schools for externs became estab- 
lished by law, and when with their great growth and ex- 
pansion of courses, the episcopal or cathedral schools 
were overshadowed, and less patronized by those who 
intended to prepare for the secular priesthood. Of this 
enactment and its consequences we shall treat later. For 
the present we may remark with M. Eavelet as an indi- 
cation of the conditions existing before the law went 
into effect: ''The description of the abbey lands of St. 
Victor, at Marseilles, drawn up in 814, contains mention 
of the sons of farmers who were then in the school, and 
the terms of the Council of Vaison and of the Council 
of Limoges, in 1031, tend to prove that the hypothesis of 
a student refusing to embrace the priesthood, after hav- 
ing profitted by the teaching of the schools, was fully 
admitted. Neither must we imagine that the schools 
attached to the country churches of this period were sim- 
ply seminaries. Little girls frequently attended them, 
and the Bishop of Soissons, in 889, orders that they be 
kept apart from the boys."°^ 



'"Hardouin, V, 61. 

•'Ravelet— Blessed John Baptist De La Salle, 14. Paris, 1888. 



CHAPTER IV 

THE SCHOOL FOR EXTEKNS 

The mimerons capitularies of the emperors and bishops 
and the canons of councils and synods, quoted in the 
preceding* chapter, give unmistakable evidence that in 
the first half of the ninth century Church and State 
mutually endeavored to continue the educational revival 
begun by Charlemagne. Louis the Pious was earnestly 
devoted to the cause of learning, and, in spite of the 
civil wars and generally disturbed state of the Empire 
during his long reign from 814 to 840, he accomplished 
much for the better organization of schools. Like his 
father, Charlemagne, he engaged a distinguished church- 
man to devise and execute plans for the betterment of 
educational conditions. He brought to the service of 
Church and State the indefatigable and energetic St. 
Benedict of Aniane whose activities in the capacity of 
a State minister of education affected the whole educa- 
tional system of the Empire. 

Early in Louis' reign the question of educating the 
young in the cloistral schools assumed a new significance. 
The monasteries were then the great public schools for 
the clergy and the laity, and some of them were caring 
for large numbers of students. The work of educating 
and rearing so many was a tremendous task and its 
demands so pressing that the monastery not infrequently 
seemed destined to become a school or college rather 
then the spiritual retreat it was originally intended to 
be. There were churchmen who realized this, and being 
zealous for the preservation of the monastic spirit raised 
their voices against education on such a scale as not 
being the proper function of the monastery. They be- 



42 EDUCATION OF THE LAITY IN THE MIDDLE AGES 

lieved that it interfered with the quiet necessary in a 
monastery and with the essential practices incumbent 
on all in the pursuit of spiritual perfection, and they did 
not hesitate to ascribe to it any lack of religious fervor 
or decline of the monastic spirit. In support of their 
attitude they alleged the famous rule of St. Caesarius 
of Aries which forbade the religious to receive the chil- 
dren of the nobility or of the poor into the cloister for 
merely educational purposes. Some even went so far as 
to disapprove of educating in the cloister the ''oblati," 
viz., those children who were offered to God as candi- 
dates for the religious life, maintaining that they could 
be instructed and prepared for their calling outside the 
confines of the cloister. 

It is not difficult, therefore, to understand how serious 
and weighty was the opposition which arose against the 
custom of receiving into the cloister those who had no 
intention of becoming monks, young clerics, for instance, 
who were preparing for the secular priesthood and 
young laymen who would return to their homes upon 
the completion of their studies. Neither is it difficult to 
appreciate the further objection which was raised against 
another feature of the monastic educational system. 
Although the two classes of students were distinguished 
one from the other, viz., the ''oblati" and those not 
intending to become monks, all were accustomed to live 
together in the cloister and to receive the same general 
training. Those zealous for a better monastic spirit 
protested against this custom. They pleaded for a train- 
ing that would more definitely prepare the young re- 
ligious for their future careers, insisting that since their 
ends in life were far different from those of the other 
students they should be given a more specialized train- 
ing. The future man of retirement and prayer needed 
a different atmosphere and different intellectual train- 
ing from the future prince or statesman. 



THE SCHOOL FOR EXTERNS 43 

The Assembly of Aachen held in 817, which has been 
called the first great meeting of the Benedictine Abbots, 
acted upon this question very decisively. While unwill- 
ing to allow the monasteries to discontinue the work 
of education, they limited and defined the kind of train- 
ing that could be given within the precincts of the 
cloister or the inner monastery. They would only per- 
mit the school of the ''oblati" to be continued there 
and forbade the maintenance of any other. ''Ut scola 
in monasterio non habeatur nisi eorum qui oblati sunt."^^ 
This ruling was of the greatest importance for the 
subsequent education of both the clergy and the laity. 
With the young novices segregated in a separate school 
it became possible to devise the more special training 
that was desired for them, and this promised much for 
the strengthening of the monastic spirit. By it, however, 
the monastery for the time ceased to be a public school, 
and if the ruling had been allowed to remain without 
permitting of other provisions for public education, the 
opportunities for higher learning offered to the secular 
clergy and the laity would have been decidely limited, 
because, at this time, the episcopal or cathedral schools 
were affected in a similar way by ecclesiastical legislation. 

At the episcopal sees the bishops and the clergy were 
living in communities which resembled the common life 
of the monasteries, but which were governed by a rule 
drawn up for them by St. Chrodegang, bishop of Metz. 
The Council of Aachen held in 816,®* in endeavoring 
to strengthen the spiritual life of these communities 
made regulations which directly affected the schools con- 
nected with them. By an enactment of this council the pu- 
pils were segregated from the other members of the 



"-Mon. Ger. Hist. Legum II, Capitularia I, 346. 

^3 Date often given as 817. Cfr. Mon. Ger. Hist. Legum III, Concilia 
II, 413. 



44 EDUCATION OF THE LAITY IN THE MIDDLE AGES 

canonicate/*and only those could be admitted to the school 
who were candidates for the canonical life of the cathe- 
dral ; young men preparing for the parish or rural clergy 
and the laity were denied admission.'^ It was not long, 
therefore, before the condition of schools generally was 
to be feared for. The parish clergy could not be as well 
instructed in the institutions then open to them as when 
allowed to attend the larger schools at the cathedrals, 
and the laity with these institutions and the monasteries 
closed to them would have only private schools and 
private tutors at their disposal. 

In less than six years, however, these conditions were 
changed. The bishops assembled at Attigny in 822 
publicly regretted their failure to provide suJBficient 
educational facilities for those who desired to enter upon 
the ecclesiastical state, and pledged themselves to re- 
newed efforts in behalf of schools. ''Scolas autem, de 
quibus hactenus minus studiosi fuimus quam debueramus, 

omnino studiosissimi emendare cupimus " They 

decided that, for the benefit of those who desired to 



®* "Solerter rectores ecclesiarum vigilare oportet, ut pueri et adoles- 
centes, qui in congregatione sibi commissa nutriuntur vel erudiuntur, ita 
jugibus ecclesiasticis disciplinis constringantur, ut eorum lasciva aetas et 
ad peccandum valde proclivis nullum possit repperire locum, quo in peccati 
f acinus proruat. Quapropter in hujuscemodi custodiendis et spiritaliter 
erudiendis talis a praelatis constituendus est vitae probabilis frater, qui 
eorum curam summa gerat industria eosque ita artissime constringat, 
qualiter ecclesiasticis doctrinis imbuti et armis spiritalibus induti et ec- 
clesiae utilitatibus decenter parere et ad gradus eccelsiasticos, quandoque 
digne possint, promovere. Libuit praeterea ob aedificationem congruam 
et instructionem negotii, de quo agitur, quandam sanctorum patrum sen- 
tentiam huic operi inserere, quae ita se habet : Prona est omnis aetas ab 
adolescentia in malum, nihil incertius quam vita adolescentium. Ob hoc 
constituendum oportuit, ut, si quis in clero puer est aut adolescentes 
existunt, omnes in uno conclavi atrii commorentur, ut lubricae aetatis 
annos non in luxoria, sed in disciplinis ecclesiasticis agant, deputati pro- 
batissimo seniori, quem et magistrum doctrinae et testem vitae habeant, 
et caetera. His ita premissis oportet, ut probatissimo seniori pueri ad 
custodiendum, licet ab alio erudiantur, deputentur. Frater vero, cui haec 
cura committitur, si eorum curam parvipenderit et aliud quam oportet 
docuerit, aut eis in aliquo cujuslibet laesionis maculam ingesserit, severis- 
sime correptus ab ofificio amoveatur et fratri alio id commitatur, qui eos 
et innocentis vitae exemplis informet et ad opus bonum peragendum ex- 
citet." Mon. Ger. Hist. Legum HI, Concilia H, 413. 

"5 Specht, Geschichte des Unterrichtswesens in Deutschland, 35 fF. 
Stuttgart, 1885. 



THE SCHOOL FOR EXTEENS 45 

pursue higher studies and yet did not care to become 
monks or to enter the canonical life of the cathedrals, 
facilities should be provided in every episcopal see for 
their education; and, where the dioceses were too exten- 
sive or the pupils too numerous to congregate in one 
place, that schools should be established in two or more 
places; furthermore, that parents, those responsible for 
the students, and the lords, should bear the expenses of 
their support so that none ambitious for learning, or 
desirous of entering the service of the Church, would 
be prevented by poverty.'^" 

The emperor supported this legislation and in his later 
admonitions to the bishops reminded them of the pledges 
made at Attigny in 822.®^ In consequence we record 
from his time the formal establishment of the schools 
for externs at the episcopal sees and the larger 
monasteries — schools which were open to all but especi- 



^^ "Dei omnipotentis inspiratione vestro piissimo studio ammoniti ves- 
troque saluberrimo exemplo provocati confitemur nos in pluribus locis, 
quam modo aut ratio aut possibilitas enumerare permittat, tam in vita 
quamque doctrina et ministerio negligentes extitisse. Quamobrem, sicut 
hactenus in his nos negligentes fuisse non denegamus, ita abhinc Domino 
opitulante, data nobis a vestra benignitate congruenti facultate vel libertate, 
diligentiorem curam in his omnibus pro captu intelligentiae nostrae nos 
velle adhibere profitemur. 

II. "Quid vero H qui do constat, quod salus populi maxime in doctrina et 
praedictatione consistat, et praedicatio eadem impleri ita ut oportet non 
potest nisi a doctis, necesse est, ut ordo talis in singulis sedibus inveniatur, 
rer quern et presens emendatio et futura utilitas sanctae ecclesiae pre- 
paretur. Qualiter autem hoc fieri debeat et possit, in sequenti capitulo 
demonstrabitur. 

III. "Scolas itaque, de quibus hactenus minus studiosi fuimus quam 
debueramus, omnino studiosissimi emendare cupimus, qualiter omnis homo 
sive majoris sive minoris aetatis, qui ad hoc nutritur, ut in aliquo gradu 
in ecclesia promoveatur, locum denominatum et magistrum congruum 
habeat. Parentes tamen vel domini singulorum de victu vel substantia 
corporali, unde subsistant, providere studeant, qualiter ita solatium 
habeant, ut propter rerum inopiam a doctrinae studio non recedant. Si 
vero necessitas fuerit propter amplitudinem parroechiae, eo quod in uno 
loco colligi non possunt, propter administrationem, quam eis procuratores 
eorum nrovidere debent, fiat locis duobus aut tribus vel prout necessitas et 
ratio dictaverit." Mon. Ger. Hist. Legum II, Concilia I, 357. 

^^ "Scolae sane ad fiHos et ministros ecclesiae instruendos vel edocendos 
sicut nobis praeterito tempore ad Attiniacum promisistis et vobis iniunxi- 
mus in congruis locis, ubi necdum perfectum est, ad multorum utilitatem et 
profectum a vobis ordinari non negligantur." Admonitio ad omnes regni 
ordines. Mon. Ger. Hist. Legum II, Capitularia I, 304. Anno 825. 



46 EDUCATION OF THE LAITY IN THE MIDDLE AGES 

ally to those aspiring to the priesthood. A good example 
of the school for externs in connection with an episcopal 
see is that of Rheims. According to Flodoardus, the 
historian of the see, when Archbishop Fulk, the successor 
of Hincmar, was elevated to office he took special care 
to restore the two schools, the inner and the outer, to 
their former prestige.'' The plan of the monastery 
of St. Gall, designed under Abbot Gospert (816-37), shows 
the outer and inner schools as they existed there and 
most probably in the other larger monasteries. The 
''Schola Interior" is inside the cloister, east of the 
church, and the ''Schola Exterior" is outside the cloister, 
between the abbot's house and the guest hall.*^ In 
937 after a fire in the monastery the monks threatened 
to close the school for externs because they believed that 
the students of that school were responsible for it. 

In the ninth century the schools for interns and ex- 
terns were numerous and well attended. Some cities 
like Orleans had both the episcopal and the monastic 
schools and parents and guardians could send the young 
to either institution. By entering them the students 
took no irrevocable pledges to become monks or canons. 
Many of them became tonsured clerics at an early age, 
but they were free to elect later, when they had attained 
their majority, between the clerical and the married state. 
The leaving of the inner to enter the outer school, or to 
return to the world, was therefore possible to all. That 
the laity of all classes attended these schools, especially 
those attached to the larger monasteries, is attested by 

^* "Prefatis denique presul honorabilis Folco, sollicitus circa Dei cultum 
et ordinem ecclesiasticum, amore quoque sapientiae fervens, duas scolas 
Remis, canonicorum scilicet loci atque ruralium clericorum, jam pene 
delapsas, restituit, et evocato Remigio Autisiodorense magistro, liberalium 
artium studiis adolescentes clericos exerceri fecit; ipseque cum eis lectioni 
ac meditationi sapientiae operam dedit. Sed et Hucbaldum Sancti 
Amandi monachum, virum quoque disciplinis sophicis nobiliter eruditum, 
accersivit et ecclesiam Remensem praeclaris illustravit doctrinis." Mon. 
Ger. Hist. Scriptores XIII. Hist. Remen. IV, 9. 

fi9 Keller, Bauriss des Klosters St. Gallen, 23 ff. Zurich, 1844. Specht, 
Ibid. 37. 



THE SCHOOL FOB EXTEKNS 47 

the foundations for the benefit of the poor and the regu- 
lations affecting the wealthier children. 

In a former chapter we have noted the attitude of 
the diocesan and the monastic authorities towards gra- 
tuitous education. The munificence of the bishops and 
the abbots continued throughout this later period, and 
was only checked when ecclesiastical institutions were 
destroyed by the invasions of foreigners and the spolia- 
tions of unscrupulous princes. The wealthier members 
of the laity were then called upon to share the heavy 
burden of maintaining the schools. While instruction 
continued tc be gratuitous, board and clothing could not 
be given freely. All who could pay for the latter were 
expected to do so, and both parents and scholars were 
generous to the monasteries and the teachers. Many 
rich foundations were established by the nobility during 
the school days of their sons and daughters. Lanfranc, 
it is said, received in presents from his students enough 
to relieve an impoverished community and to erect the 
first buildings of the monastery of Bee. 

In the ninth and tenth centuries, despite the heavy 
losses caused by war and spoliation, schools multiplied 
in the more populous centers of the Empire, and the 
number of students increased. Leon Maitre in his re- 
view of educational conditions in the ninth century re- 
fers to the more famous schools at the episcopal sees 
of Orleans, Rheims, Soissons, Amiens, Metz, Verdun, 
and Liege, also to notable schools at the monasteries of 
Tours, St. Alban near Mainz, Seligenstadt, Hirschau, St. 
Gall, Reichenau, to which the sons of princes resorted 
to learn how to govern their domains, St. Germain 
d'Auxerre, where a son of Charles the Bald studied under 
the renowned Heiric, St. Germain-des-Pres and St. Denis 
at Paris, St. Benedict on the Loire, and St. Liffard in 
the diocese of Orleans, Corbie, and New Corbie in Saxony, 
St. Riquier, St. Martin at Metz, St. Bertin in the diocese 



48 EDUCATION OF THE LAITY IN THE MIDDLE AGES 

of Cambrai, and St. Benedict of Aniane in the diocese of 
Montpellier.'^' 

We know what fame the monastery of Fulda in Ger- 
many had attained under the direction of Rhabanns 
Maurns. Alcuin's pupil in the monastery of Tours had 
the distinction of being the most noted teacher of his 
time, and it has been well said that "to signal ability as 
a teacher and merit as a writer Rhabanns added no small 
achievements as a founder. At the time of his election 
as abbot, no less than sixteen monasteries and nunneries, 
either founded by former abbots or affiliated at their 
own desire, already looked up to Fulda as their parent 
house. To these Rhabanns added six more, — those at 
Corvey, Solenhofen, Celle, Hersfeld, Petersberg, and 
Hirschau;we may accordingly reckon twenty-two societies 
wherein his authority would be regarded as law, and 
his teaching be faithfully preserved. ' ' ^^ The monas- 
tery too of St. Benedict on the Loire deserves special 
attention for the fame it achieved and the great numbers 
of its pupils. Like Fulda it placed only men of deep 
piety and learning at the head of the schools, and it is 
recorded that in the last half of the tenth century 5,000 
students lived there. 

In England an educational revival was attempted in 
the ninth century under Alfred the Great. (849-900) A 
new spirit entered into the monastic schools as a result 
of the reforms he encouraged. He brought the scholars 
Grimbald of St. Bertin of Rheims, and John of Corbie, 
from the Continent to raise the standards of the schools. 
In the next century St. Dunstan (924-88) appeared as 
a veritable champion of religion and education. As 
abbot of Glastonbury, bishop of Worcester, London, 
and Canterbury, he looked especially to the condition 
of the schools. Historians speak of his habit of visiting 
and teaching the boys in the cathedral school at Canter- 



•^"Maitre, Les Ecoles Episcopales et Monastiques, 48. Paris, 1866. 
^1 Mullinger, Schools of Charles the Great, 151. 



THE SCHOOL FOR EXTERNS 49 

bury and of the favor in which he was held by them. He 
was so much beloved that after his death he became the 
patron saint of English school-boys, and his protection 
was invoked against harsh and cruel teachers. A detail 
of his life which is of rare importance in the history of 
education was his devotion to the manual arts. Instructed 
in them by Irish monks when a youth at Glaston- 
bury, he was throughout life an artistic and enthusiastic 
craftsman in metal, wood, and ivory. The ecclesiastical 
canons of his time place injunctions on the parish clergy 
to teach the boys of their parishes some of the manual 
arts, and it does not seem improbable that they were the 
result of his interest in the teaching and the practice of 
the crafts. The following were passed during King 
Edgar's reign : ''And that every priest do moreover teach 
manual arts with diligence." "And that the priest dili- 
gently instruct Youth, and dispose them to trades that 
they may have a support to the Church. ' ' ^^ 

The Christians in Spain being at this time under the 
yoke of the Arab, their schools suffered by the vicissitudes 
of war and persecution. In Italy, however, despite the 
Saracen invasion, we can note the existence of the 
monastic, episcopal, parish and private schools. Lothaire 
I in his decree of 823 deplored the condition of learning 
in Northern Italy and endeavored to reorganize educa- 
tion by instituting schools at nine important places, — 



"2 Johnscn, John. Collection of the Ecclesiastical Canons, etc., of the 
Church of England, I, Canons of 960, Nos. 11 and 51. London, 1730. 
Canones editi sub Edgaro Rege, et ad leges suas pertinentes. (Ut in 
veterrinio niaiiuscfif'to codice Saxonico CoUegii Corporis Christi Can- 
tabrigiae reperiiintur . . .) Canon 11. "Docemus etiam, ut sacerdos 
quilibet ad augendam scientiam opificum discat diligenter." (Hardouin, 
Acta Con. VI, 660.) "Docemus etiam, ut quilibet sacerdos augendae 
scientiae causa diligenter discat opificium." (Mansi, Coll. Con. XVIIA, 
513.) Canon 51. "Docemus etiam, ut sacerdotes sedulo erudiunt ju- 
ventutem, et ad artificia ediscenda eos pertrahant, futuros utpote in rem 
ecclesiae." (Hardouin VI, 663.) "Docemus etiam, ut sacerdotes ju- 
ventutem sedulo doceant, et ad opificia trahant, ut ecclesiae auxilium 
(inde) _ habeant." Mansi XVIIA, 517.) Anderson, L. F. "Industrial 
Education during the Middle Ages," in Education, February, 1912. 



50 EDUCATION OF THE LAITY IN THE MIDDLE AGES 

Pavia, Ivrea, Turin, Cremona, Florence, Fermo, Verona, 
Vicenza, and Friuli. The head of the school of Pavia 
was Dungall, an Irishman/^ 



73 Mon. Ger. Hist. Legum II, Capitularia I, 327. Sandys, History of 
Classical Scholarship I, 462. Cambridge, 1906. 



CHAPTER V 

THE TENTH AND ELEVENTH CENTURIES 

After reviewing the educational revival under Charle- 
magne and his successors, and witnessing the organiza- 
tion of scholastic forces that resulted, it is refreshing to 
note with the historian Laurie that, "after all, the early 
half of the ninth century perhaps did more for educa- 
tion, as that word was then understood, in proportion to 
the means and opportunities available, than any period 
since."'* It can clearly be seen that during the century 
new thought was taken for the better education of the 
clergy and the laity, and the achievements of the time 
were an inspiration and incentive to those who, in the 
centuries which followed, led in the councils of Church 
and State. Despite the vicissitudes through which educa- 
tional institutions then passed, the dark days of invasion, 
war, and spoliation of the tenth and eleventh centuries, 
the lamp of science was kept burning by churchmen and 
leading laymen whose services to learning were not less 
than heroic. Each century saw its zealots striving for 
the preservation of ecclesiastical life in the monasteries 
and the canonicates, eager for the restoration and per- 
fection of the schools, and endeavoring to provide for the 
moral and spiritual enlightenment of the people. Througn 
the unselfish efforts of these leaders of society, whether 
the Pope, the emperor, a bishop or a prince, the modern 
world can see the educational ideal of the age, and obtain 
a fair view of the actual conditions which existed. 

Of King Alfred's revival in England, to which refer- 
ence has already been made, and of its influence in this 



'■^ Laurie, S. S. Rise and Early Constitution of Universities, 77. Xevv 
York, 1898. 



02 EDUCATION OF THE LAITY IN THE MIDDLE AGES 

period, much more indeed can be said. He strove to im- 
prove the monasteries of his kingdom and to educate the 
people generally. In the preface to his translation of 
Pope Gregory's Pastoral Care, one of the earliest works 
of English literature, he says : 

''Therefore, I think it is better, if you think so too, 
that we also should translate some of the books, which 
are most useful for all men to know, into the language 
which we can all understand, and should do as we very 
easily can with God's help if we have peace, that all the 
youth of our English freemen, who are rich enough to de- 
vote themselves to it, should be set to learning, as long as 
they are not fit for any other occupation, until they are 
well able to read English writing; and further let those 
afterwards learn Latin who will continue in learning, 
and go to a higher rank. When I remembered how the 
knowledge of Latin had formerly decayed among the 
English, and yet many could read English writing, I be- 
gan, among other various and manifold troubles of this 
kingdom, to translate into English the book which is 
called in Latin Pastoralis, and in English The Herd's 
Book, sometimes word for word and sometimes meaning 
for meaning, as I had learned it from Plegmund my arch- 
bishop, and Asser my bishop, and Grimbold my mass- 
priest, and John my mass-priest. And when I had 
learned it to the best of my ability, and as I could most 
clearly interpret it, I translated it into English; and I 
will send a copy to every bishopric in my kingdom ; with 
a clasp on each worth fifty mancuses. And I forbid in 
God 's name anyone to take the clasp from the book or the 
book from the minster. ' ' ^^ 

Alfred's children were educated in the court or palace 
school with the exception of Ethelwald, his youngest son, 
who, according to the historian Asser, ''by divine counsel 
and the admirable foresight of the King, was entrusted 
to the school of literary training (Grammar School), 
with the children of almost all of the nobility of the coun- 

" Leach. A. F. Educational Charters and Documents. Cambridge, 1911. 



THE TENTH AND ELEVENTH CENTUKIES 53 

try, and many also who were not noble, under the diligent 
care of masters. In that school, books in both languages, 
Latin and Saxon, were diligently read. They also had 
leisure for writing, so that before they had strength for 
manly arts, namely hunting and sucli pursuits as befit 
gentlemen, they were seen to be studious and clever in the 
liberal arts.. . . " ^"^ 

One of Alfred 's foundations was ' ' the school which he 
had with great zeal collected from many noble boys, and 
also boys who were not noble, of his own nation." " 

The effect of Alfred's interest in learning on the cour- 
tiers and nobles of his realm was excellent. We are told 
that they, following the royal example, turned to books 
and cultivated the art of reading. ''So that in a marvel- 
lous manner nearly all of the earls, the bailiffs and thanes 
who had been illiterate from infancy, studied the art of 
grammar, choosing rather to acquire an unaccustomed 
learning than to resign their office and power. But if any 
of them could not get on in his study of literature through 
age or the stupidity of an unused intellect, he ordered 
his son if he had one, or other near relation, or if there 
was no one else his freeman or slave, whom he had long 
before advanced to reading, to read aloud Saxon books 
to him, day and night, whenever he hud leave. And they 
would lament in the recesses of their minds, that in their 
youth they had not devoted themselves to such studies. 
They counted the youth of this time happy in being able 
to learn the liberal arts, and themselves unhappy in that 
they had not learnt these things in their youth, and that in 



"<^ '"Ethelwald, omnibus junior, ludis literariae disciplinae, divino consilio 
et admirabili regis providentia, cum omnibus pene totius regionis nobilibus 
infantibus et etiam multis ignobilibus, sub diligenti magistrorum cura tra- 
ditus est. In qua scola utriusque linguae libri, Latinae scilicet et Saxonicae, 
assidue legebantur, scriptioni quoque vacabant, ita, ut antequam aptas 
humanis artibus vires haberent, venatoriae scilicet et ceteris artibus, quae 
nobilibus conveniunt, in liberalibus artibus studiosi et ingeniosi videren- 
tur. . . ." Asscrius, De Rebus Gestis Aelfredi. 75. Edited by W. H. 
Stevenson, Oxford, 1904. 

" '.'• : • • scholae, quam ex multis suae propiae gentis nobilibus et etiam 
pueris ignobilibus studiossissme congregavit." Ibid. 102. 



54 EDUCATION OF THE LAITY IN THE MIDDLE AGES 

their old age, though they vehemently wanted to, they 
could not learn." ^^ 

These accounts of the revival we have received from 
the Life of King Alfred by Asser, who is supposed to be 
his contemporary. The history is, however, believed by 
some to be largely, if not entirely, the work of a much 
later writer. Leach, for instance, believes that "While 
therefore we cannot consider Asser 's Life as evidence of 
the state of education in the ninth century it is highly in- 
teresting as evidence of what an eleventh century writer 
thought possible. It shows at all events that English 
mothers of the eleventh century taught their children, even 
royal children, to read English poetry, and that it was 
customary for English kings and nobles to send their 
sons to the Grammar school with ordinary freemen to 
learn Latin and to fit them for judicial business, or for 
clerical work in the modern as well as the medieval 
sense. "^* Stevenson, however, in his edition of Asser 's 
Life, says that the result of his careful study of the work 
has been to convince him that "although there may be 
no very definite proof that the work was written by 
Bishop Asser in the lifetime of King Alfred, there is no 
anachronism or other proof that it is a spurious compila- 
tion of a later date. The serious charges brought against 
its authenticity break down altogether under examina- 
tion, while there remain several features that point with 



'^8 ". . . Ita ut mirum in modum illiterati ab infantia comites pene omnes, 
praepositi ac ministri literatoriae arti studerent, malentes insuetam disci- 
plinam quam laboriose discere, quam potestatum ministeria dimittere. Sed 
si aliquis literalibus studiis aut pro senio vel etiam pro nimia inusitati 
ingenii tarditate proficere non valeret, suum, si haberet, filium, aut etiam 
aliquem propinquum suum, vel etiam, si aliter non habeat, suum proprium 
hominem, liberum vel servum, quem ad lectionem longe ante promoverat, 
libros ante se die nocteque, quandocunque unquam ullam haberet licen- 
tiam, Saxanicos imperabat recitare. Et suspirantes nimium intima mente 
dolebant eo quod in juventute sua talibus studiis non studuerant, felices 
arbitrantes hujus temporis juvenes, qui liberalibus artibus feliciter erudire 
poterant, se vero infelices existimantes, qui nee hoc in juventute didicerant, 
nee etiam in senectute, quamvis inhianter desiderarent, poterant discere." 
Ibid. 106. 

^^ Educational Charters, xvi. 



THE TENTH AND ELEVENTH CENTURIES 55 

varying strength to the conclusion that it is, despite its 
difficulties and corruptions, really a work of the time it 
purports to be. This result is confirmed by the impor- 
tant corroboration of some of its statements by contem- 
porary Frankish chroniclers. Thus the profession of be- 
lief in its authenticity by such eminent historians as 
Kemble, Pauli, Stubbs, and Freeman agree with my own 
conclusion." ®° 

Charles Plummer in his Life and Times of Alfred the 
Great, believes that the ''work which bears Asser's name 
cannot be later than 974, and the attempt to treat it as a 
forgery of the eleventh or twelfth century must be re- 
garded as having broken down. I may add that I started 
with a strong prejudice against the authenticity of Asser, 
so that my conclusions have at any rate been impartially 
arrived at. ' ' " 

Two other works assigned to the end of the tenth and 
the beginning of the eleventh century, namely, the ' ' Col- 
loquy" and the ''Grammar" of the Abbot Aelfric, throw 
interesting light on the educational condition of the time 
in which they were written. In the ' ' Colloquy, ' ' a school- 
boy is asked by his master, "What work have you?" He 
answers : " I am a professed monk and I sing seven times 
a day with the brethren and I am busy with reading and 
singing; and meanwhile I want to learn to speak Latin." 
In answer to the second question, "What do these com- 
panions of yours know?" he says: "Some are plough- 
men, others shepherds, some are cowherds, some too are 
hunters, some are hawkers, some merchants, some shoe- 
makers, some salters, some bakers of the place." If the 
work is representative of a school of that time it "shows 
an amazing diffusion of education among all classes, 
boys in all the different occupations . . . learning 
Latin of a secular teacher side by side with a young 

80 Asserius, De Rebus Gestis Aelfredi, vii. 

81 Plummer. Life and Times of Alfred the Great. Oxford. 1902. 



56 EDUCATION OF THE LAITY IN THE MIDDLE AGES 

moDk." From certain expressions in the ''Grammar," 
believed to be the first English-Latin grammar, it has 
been assumed that not only boys were learning Latin but 
girls also, for instance, the example given to illustrate 
that the gerundive in do does not vary in gender is, 
"Ipsa monialis vigilat docendo puellas; ("The nun is 
awake teaching little girls") and "Legendo docetur vir 
et legendo docetur mulier," ("A man is taught by read- 
ing and a woman is taught by reading. ")^^ 

Furthermore towards the end of the tenth century the 
ecclesiastical law of England placed injunctions on the 
priests in the villages to learn and to teach the manual 
arts, such as we have already noted in connection with St. 
Dunstan, and explicitly commanded them to ' ' keep schools 
in the villages and to teach small boys freely. ' ' The law 
stated also: "Priests ought always to have schools of 
schoolmasters in their houses, and if any of the faithful 
wish to give his little ones to learning they ought will- 
ingly to receive them and teach them gratuitously. You 
ought to think that it has been written: 'they that are 
learned shall shine as the brightness of the firmament: 
and they that instruct many to justice, as stars for all 
eternity.' But they ought not to expect anything from 
their relations except what they wish to do of their own 
accord." The wording of this decree is almost identical 
with that of the famous capitulary of Theodulf of Or- 
leans of the latter part of the eighth century.*^ 

During this same period noblemen of other countries, 
notably of France and of Italy, were conspicuous for 
their interest in learning and in the welfare of the schools. 



82 Leach, Ibid. 39fif. 

''^ "Ut presbyteri per villas scholas habeant et gratis parvulos doceant. 
Presbyteri semper debent in domibus suis ludimagistrorum scholas habere, 
et si quis deyotus parvulos suos eis ad instructionem concredere velit illos 
quam libentissime suscipere et benigne docere debent. Cogitare debetis 
quod scriptum sit quod 'qui docti sunt fulgebunt sicut splendor coeli' et 
quod 'qui multos ad justitiam erudiverunt et docuerunt splendebunt sicut 
stellae in aeternum.' Attamen non debent pro instructione eorum aliquid a 
consanguineis expectare nisi quod propria voluntate facere voluerint." 
Wilkins, Concilia Magnae Britaniae et Hiberniae, I, 270. Londini, 1737. 



THE TENTH AND ELEVENTH CENTURIES 57 

Clerval in classifying the distinguished pupils of Char- 
tres during the time of the great teacher and bishop, 
St. Fulbert (tl029), speaks of two classes of laymen who 
were educated in the episcopal school: tlie first embraced 
those who eventually became members of religious 
orders, and the second those who remained in the world. 
Among the former were Foucher, a married man who 
was 'primicerius' of the school; Ive, who was also 
married, and likewise head of the school; and Goisbert, 
a celebrated and prosperous physician who after selling 
his estate and giving all to the monastery, practiced 
medicine for the benefit of the poor and the monastery. 
The donations received by him for his services were 
many and valuable. Among those who remained in the 
world were the famous savants and physicians Geoffroi, 
Guizo, and Jean, the latter a notable philosopher, 
and the musician Guillemus. The historian of the 
schools of Chartres also refers to other learned men 
among the laity who were founders of monasteries and 
patrons of letters but the place of whose training is not 
known.-* 

Maitre mentions other princes who were founders of 
monasteries and colleges. Guerech, count of Nantes, was 
an alumnus and benefactor of the monastery of St. 
Benedict on the Loire ; Theobald, count of Anjou, founded 
the monastery of St. Florent de Saumur, and Borel, 
count of Barcelona, was a patron of learning who in- 
duced the great Gerbert to go to Spain and teach there.®^ 
In England too, Ilbert of Lacy founded the collegiate 
church of St. Clement in Pontefract Castle with which 
was connected the school of Kirby-Pontefract. Robert 
of Eu founded the collegiate church of St. Mary in the 
castle of Hastings. The latter ''made one canon of the 
church ex officio master of the Grammar school and 
another of the song school."®*' 



S'* Clerval. Les Ecoles de Chartres au moyen age, 69. Paris 1895. 
■^'^Maitre, Les Ecoles Episcopales et Monastiques, 79. 
*^ Leach, Ibid. xxi. 



58 EDUCATION OF THE LAITY IN THE MIDDLE AGES 

In Italy schools were so flourisliing and well attended 
as to excite the admiration of foreigners. The devotion 
of the Italians to learning was upheld to the Germans 
for their emulation in one particular and notable in- 
stance. A poem by Yv^ipo, ''Carmen Legis pro laude 
Regis," addressed to King Henry III, portrays a con- 
dition which is entirely complimentary to the Italy of 
the eleventh century. The credibility of the author and 
his weight as a witness to the condition of culture at that 
time have been ably discussed by German and Italian 
scholars. We accept here the views of Novati,^^ who 
takes the simpler interpretation of the poem and ad- 
mirably demonstrates that it referred to a learned body 
in Italy which not only embraced the princes of the blood 
but the wealthier classes — the divites, and not alone the 
principes. 

In the poem^' the king is urged to command that the 
Germans provide instruction for their children in letters, 
and in the law, that they may discharge the duties of 
their state, abide by those customs and practices on 
which a great State must rest, and by which ancient Eome 
lived so honorably. These things all of the Italians cul- 



87 Novati, F. L'Influsso del Pensiero Latino sopra la Civilta Italiano del 
Medio Aevo, 68. Milano, 1899. 

88 "Cum Deus omnipotens tibi totum fregerit orbem, 
Et juga praecepti non audet temnere quisquam, 
Pacatusque silet firmato foedere mundus, 
Cumque per imperium tua jussa volatile verbum, 
Edocet, Augusti de claro nomine scriptum : 
Tunc fac edictum per terram Teutonicorum, 
Quilibet ut dives sibi natos instruat omnes 
Litterulis, legemque suam persuadeat illis ; 
Ut, cum principibus placitandi venerit usus, 
Quisque suis libris exemplum proferat illis. 
Moribus his dudum vivebat Roma decenter, 
His studiis tantos potuit vincere tj'rannos; 
Hoc servant Itali post prima crepundia cuncti, 
Et sudare scolis mandatur tota juventus: 
Solis Teutonicis vacuum vel turpe videtur. 
Ih doceant aliquem, nisi clericus accipiatur. 
Sed, rex docte, jube cunctos per regna docen- 
Ut tecum regnet saoientia partibus istis." 
Migne, Pat. Lat. CXUI, 1256. 



THE TENTH AND ELEVENTH CENTURIES 59 

tivate from their childhood: the entire youth is com- 
manded to attend the schools — sudare in scholis. Only to 
the Germans, the poet says, does the study of letters ap- 
pear a useless and unbecoming occupation, unless for 
those intended for the ecclesiastical state. The king 
should, therefore, command that all be instructed so that 
wisdom may reign with him in his kingdom. 

This period deserves especial attention also for the 
opportunities it offered for training in the special pro- 
fessions of law and medicine into which the laity were 
to enter in ever increasing numbers. Law was then 
taught in connection with the liberal arts in the monas- 
teries, the episcopal schools, and in some private insti- 
tutions. The downfall of legal education in the early 
Middle Ages means only of the law schools properly so 
called. As Savigny says in his History of Roman law, 
"Roman Law, as a branch of ancient literature was in- 
cluded in the course of study, and especially taught in 
connection with dialectics throughout the Middle Ages."**" 
It is mentioned in Wipo's poem; it was included in the 
curriculum of the School of York, in the time of Alcuin,^" 
and in other cathedral schools. At times it received a 
curious place in the curriculum. At Toul in the middle 
of the eleventh century it was studied after the trivium 
and before the quadrivium of the seven liberal arts.^^ 
While we know that many clerics studied and practiced 
law we know too that there were in this period many lay- 
men among the students and the teachers, like, for in- 
stance, Irnerius the great jurist of Bologna in the 
eleventh and the twelfth century, and Lanfranc who 



^9 Savigny. Geschichte de Romischen Rechts im Mittelalter, I, vi 
Heidelberg, 1834. 

90 Carmen de Pont. Eccles. Ebor. Pat. Lat. CI, 841. 

^^ Histoire litteraire de la France, XII, 24. Cfr. Savigny, I, vi. for a 
foundation in Toul attributed to Pope Leo IX. "Nempe ut primum corn- 
petit rudibus, decurso artium trivio, non solum claruerunt prosa et metro, 
verum et forenses controversias acuto et vivaci oculo mentis deprehensas 
exoediebant, seu removebant sedulo. Denique quadrivium naturali ingenio 
vestigantes degusta:unt, atque non minimum in ipso quoque valuerunt." 



60 EDUCATION OF THE LAITY IN THE MIDDLE AGES 

practiced law before lie retired to the monastery of Bee. 
The judges and notaries so frequently spoken of in the 
history of Roman law were laymen and teachers of law. 

Before the rise of the universities it was not unusual 
for the monks to rank as the most learned writers and 
translators of medical works, and the most skilled prac- 
tioners, and to be retained at the courts as the royal 
physicians. There were, nevertheless, the lay physicians 
like a certain Guidoaldo who appeared in the eighth 
century in Pistoia, famous for his science and skill and 
who remained a layman to his death,®^ and there were the 
professors, like Constantine Africanus, of the eleventh 
century, who lectured publicly on medicine at Salerno be- 
fore he became a monk of Monte Cassino.^^ 

A condition for entrance upon the courses of law and 
medicine was attendance at the lower schools. To study 
law at Bologna when the great school was well organized 
it was required to have spent five years in the grammar 
school, and to begin medicine at Salerno, in the thirteenth 
century, three years at least were to be spent in the 
study of logic. It was but a natural consequence that 
with the rise of the great schools which developed into 
the universities of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, 
and with a wider interest in learning, the elementary and 
grammar schools, those under parish or city adminis- 
tration, should everywhere proportionally increase. 



^^Coppi, E. Le Universita Italiane nel Medio Aevo, 29. Firenze, 1886. 
92Neuburger, Max. Geschichte der Medizin, II, i, 270. Stuttgart, 1911. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Alcuin. ''Carmen de Pontificibus et Sanctis Ecclesiae 
Ehoracensis." Patrologia Latina, CI, 841; Monu- 
menta Alcuiniana, 81, in Bibliotheca Rerum German- 
icariim, VI. 

Allain, L'Abbe. L' Instruction primaire en France avant 
la Revolution. Paris, 1881. 

Allard. Julien L'Apostat. Paris, 1903. 

v Anderson, L. F. Industrial Education during the Mid- 
dle Ages. Education, XXXII, 6. 

Asserius. De Rebus Gestis Aelfredi. Edited by W, H. 
Stevenson, Oxford, 1904. 

Bibliotheca Rerum Germanicarum; edidit Philippiis 
Jaffe. Berolini, 1867-73. 

Browning, Oscar. Aspects of Education. New York, 
1892. 

Catholic Encyclopedia. 15 vols. New York, 1907-12. 

Ceillier. Histoire generate des auteurs s acres et ecclesi- 
astiques. 16 vols. Paris, 1856-69. 

:, Chevalier, Ulysse. Repertoire des sources historiqiies 
du moyen age. Bio-Bibliographie, 2 vols. Paris, 
1905. T op o-Biblio graphic, 2 vols. Montbeliard, 1899- 
1903. 

Clerval, A. Les ecoles de Chartres au moyen age, du Ve 
au XVIe siecle. Paris, 1895. 

Coppi, E. Le Universitd Italiane nel Medio Aevo. 
Firenze, 1886. 



62 BIBLIOGKAPHY 

Cubberley, E. P. Syllahus of Lectures on the History of 
Education. New York, 1904. 

Denifle, P. Die Entstehung der Universitdten des Mit- 
telalters bis 1400. Vol. I, Berlin, 1885. 

Denk, V. M. Otto. Geschichte des Gallo-Frdnkischen 
Unterrichts und Bildungswesens, von dltesten Zeiten 
his auf Karl den Grossen. Mainz, 1892. 

Drane, Mother Augusta. Christian Schools and Schol- 
ars. 2nd edit. London, 1881; reprint, New York, 
1910. 

/ Eckenstein, Lina. Woman under Monasticism; chap- 
ters on Saint-lore and convent life between A. D. 500 
and A. D. 1500. Cambridge, 1896. 

Encyclopaedia Brittanica. Eleventh edition. 29 vols. 
Cambridge, 1910. 

Gougaud, Dom Louis. Les Chretientes Celtiques. Paris, 
191L 

Grant, James. History of the Burgh and Parish Schools 
of Scotland. 2 vols. London, 1876. Vol. L Burgh 
Schools. 

Hardouin. Acta Conciliorum et Epistolae Decretales, ac 
Constitutiones Summorum Pontificum. 12 vols. 
Parisiis, 1714. 

Healy, John. Insula Sanctorum et Doctorum: Ireland's 
Ancient Schools and Scholars. Dublin, 1893. 

Hefele, Carl Joseph von. Conciliengeschichte: fort- 
gesetzt von J. Cardinal Hergenrother. Freiburg, 
1890. 

Histoire litteraire de la France; ouvrage commence par 
des religieux Benedictins de la Congregation de 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 63 

Saint-Maiir, et continue par des Membres de I'ln- 
stitut. 33 vols. Paris, 1733-1898. 

Jafte, P. Monumenta Moguntina; Monunienta Carolina; 
Monumenta Alcuiniana; in Bibliotheca Rerum Ger- 
manicarum, III, IV, and VI. Berolini, 1867-73. 

Johnson, John. Collection of the Ecclesiastical Laws, y/ 
Canons, etc., of the Church of England. London, 1720. 

Joyce, P. W. Social History of Ancient Ireland. London, 
1903. 

Keller, Ferdinand. Bauriss des Klosters St. Gallen. 
Ziirich, 1844. 

Lalanne, J. A. Influence des Peres de VEglise sur V edu- 
cation puhlique pendant les cinq premiers siecles de 
I'ere chretienne. Paris, 1850. 

Laiinoy. De scholis celeb rioribus, sen a Carolo Magno, 
etc., instauratis liber. Opera omnia, IV, i, Coloniae 
Allobrognm, 1731. 

Laurie, S. S. Rise and Early Constitution of Universi- 
ties. New York, 1898. 

Leach, A. F. Educational Charters and Documents, 598- 
1909. Cambridge, 1911. 

Mabillon, Joannes. Tractatiis de studiis monasticis. v 
Viennae, 1757. 

Mabillon, Joannes. Iter germanicum. Hamburgi, 1717. 

Montalambert, Count de. The Monks of the West, from 
St. Benedict to St. Bernard. Boston, 1872. 

Maitland, S. R. The Dark Ages : Essays illustrating the 
state of Religion and Literature in the ninth, tenth, 
eleventh and twelfth centuries. London, 1889. 

Maitre, Leon. Les ecoles episcopates et monastiques de 
r Occident. Paris, 1866. 



64 BIBLIOGEAPHY 

Mansi. Collectio Amplissima Conciliorum. Parisiis, 
1901. 

Marion, L. Histoire de VEglise. 3 vols. Paris, 1905-06. 

Migne. Patrologia Graeca; Patrologia Latina. 

Monument a Germaniae Historica; Inde ab anno Christi 
quingentesimo usque ad annum milesimum et quin- 
gentesimnm. Edidit Societas Aperiendis Fontibus 
Rerum Germanicarnm Medii Aevi. Hanover. 1816 
sqq. 

Monroe, Paul. Text-Book in the History of Education. 
New York, 1909. 

Mullinger, J. Bass. The Schools of Charles the Great. 
New York, 1911. 

Muteau, Charles. Les ecoles et colleges en Province. 
Dijon, 1882. 

Neuburger, Max. Geschichte der Medizin. Stuttgart, 
1911. 

Novati, F. L'Inftusso del Pensiero Latino sopra la 
Civilta Italiano del Medio Aevo. Milano, 1899. 

'Curry, Eugene. On the Manners and Customs of the 
Ancient Irish. London, 1873. 

Ozanam, A. Frederic. La civilisation au cinquieme 
siecle; 2 vols. La civilisation Chretienne chez les 
Francs. Oeuvres completes. Paris, 1872-81. 

Paetow, Louis John. The Arts Course at Medieval Uni- 
versities ivith Special Reference to Grammar and 
Rhetoric. The University Studies, III, 7. Uni- 
versity of Illinois, 1910. 

Parmentier, J. Histoire de V education en Angleterre. 
Paris, 1896. 

Plummer, Charles. Life and Times of Alfred the Great. 
Oxford, 1902. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 65 

Rashdall, Hastings. The Universities of Europe in the 
Middle Ages. 2 vols. Oxford, 1895. 

Roger, M. L'Enseignement des lettres classiques 
d'Ausone a Alcuin. Paris, 1905. 

Sandys, John Edwin. History of Classical Scholarship. 
3 vols. Cambridge, 1906. 

Savigny. Geschichte des Romischen Rechts im Mittelal- V 
ter. Heidelberg, 1834. 

Specht. Geschichte des Unterrichtswesens in Deutsch- 
land. Stuttgart, 1885. 

Stockl, Albert. Geschichte der Pddagogik. Mainz, 1876. 

Taylor, Henry Osborn. Classical Heritage of the Middle v 
Ages. New York, 1901. 

Turner, William. Irish Teachers in the Caroling ian Re- 
vival. The Catholic University Bulletin, XIII, 382, 
567. 

Thatcher, Oliver J., and McNeal, Edgar H. A Source ^ 
Book for Medieval History. New York, 1905. 

Vacandard, E. La Scola du palais merovingien. Revue 
des Quesions Historiques, LXI, 490. Un dernier mot 
sur I'ecole du palais merovingien. Ibid. LXXVI, 549. 

West. Alcuin and the Rise of Christian Schools. New 
York, 1892. 

Wilde, A. S. Les ecoles du palais aux temps merovin- 
giens. Revue des Quesions Historiques, LXXIV, 
552. 

Wilkins. Concilia Magnae Britaniae et Hiberniae. Lon- 
dini, 1737. 



VITA. 

The writer of this dissertation was born December 10, 
1880, at Norwich, Connecticut. He received his early edu- 
cation in the Public and Parochial schools of Norwich and 
New York City, making in the latter place part of his 
high school course. After completing his classical 
studies he attended St. Joseph's Seminary, Dun- 
woodie, N. Y., for courses in Philosophy and Theol- 
ogy, and was ordained to the Priesthood on July 26, 1904, 
at Hartford, Conn. Matriculating at the Catholic Uni- 
versity of America in October, 1904, he followed the 
courses of Drs. Sliahan, Creagh, Pace, and Shields, and 
obtained the degree of Bachelor of Sacred Theology in 
June, 1905, and the degree of Licentiate in Sacred Theol- 
ogy in June, 1906. He held the office of Superintendent 
of Catholic Schools in the Diocese of Hartford, Conn., 
from June, 1906, until October, 1910, when he was ap- 
pointed Instructor in Education at the Catholic Uni- 
versity of America. 



LIBRftRY OF CONGRESS 



000 190 572 



'111 ' 





